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LUTE TAYLOR'S 



Chip Basket 



CHOICE SELECTIONS 



FROM THE 



LECTURES, ESSAYS, ADDRESSES, EDITORIALS, AND 
PUBLIC AND SOCIAL CORRESPONDENCE 



LUTE A. TAYLOR. 

COMPILED AND EDITED BY 

H. A. TAYLOR. 



HUDSON, WIS. 
Star and Times Printing Howe. 

X874. 






Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

H. A. TAYLOR & CO., 

in the ofBce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 

II CU^j tftf 



TO ALL THOSE WHO 



RECOGNIZE THE GOOD, CHERISH THE TRUE, 



ADMIRE THE BEAUTIFUL. 



LITTLE VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 



INDEX. 



Dedication, 3 

Introduction, 7 

Lute A. Taylor, -- 9 

Margaret Fuller — A Lecture, - - - - 19 

The Chip Basket, 43 

Mirage, _--. 45 

Lost Motion, ..- 49 

To a Boy Editor, 51 

A Night i^ a Lighthouse, 57 

The Night Train, - 59 

"Poor Carlotta!" ------- 61 

The Type and the Typos, 63 

Winter, 67 

Death of Wedded Love, ------ 71 

The New Year, ------- 73 

Getting Well, ----.---75 

Robert Burns, - 77 

Ventriloquism, 81 

A Familiar Epistle, --.-_- 83 
Religious Professors, ---.__ 89 

Dec. 2, 1859, -_- 91 

An Ideal Poem, -- 92 

Chicago, --------- 93 

Thanksgiving — 1862, -------97 

Social Correspondence, ----- 99 

Two Pictures, -------- 121 

Fishing, and Other Things, ----- 125 

A Human Ruin, - - 130 

A Poem, -- 131 



6 CONTENTS. 

Fourth of July Oration, 137 

Chamber Scene, - 145 

All's Right, -- - 146 

What I Know about Stammering, . . . 147 

The Newspaper, - -153 

Agriculture, - 159 

A Prefatory Letter, - 163 

Tooth Pulling, ------- 165 

To - 167 

Horace Greeley, 168 

The Tin-Pail Brigade, 171 

Lines Written on Reading Lincoln's Inaugural 

Address, ---._.-- 173 

Reason and Religion, ------ 175 

Discoverers, 176 

Blight and Bloom, 179 

Radicalism, --- 183 

Looks Upward to God, 184 

Influence of Literature upon Life, - - - 185 

True Friends, 187 

Art, - - 189 

To Desdemona, 190 

The Triumph of Principle, ----- 191 

The Banner, - 192 

The Waning Year, 193 

The Black Crook, 196 

Christmas and Christmas Giving, - - - - 197 

Loaferism is Death, 199 

Train and Christianity, ------ 203 

"All Right," -- 20S 

Graves and Graveyards, 211 

The Holidays, 214 

Sociology, 217 



INTRODUCTION, 



npHE publication of this volume was not undertaken with 
-'- the expectation that it would fill any especial place in 
the realm of Letters, nor that it would ever be very widely 
introduced into the libraries of the general reading public. 
It has been issued in compliance with a prevailing sentiment, 
among the many personal friends and hterary admirers of 
Lute A. Taylor, that his writings are worthy preservation 
in permanent form, and entitled to a distinction above that 
accorded to the transitory newspaper literature of the day. 

With these unambitious expectations, yet confident in this 
belief, the contemplated publication of this little volume was 
announced. I have been alike gratified and surprised at the 
general expression of satisfaction given that such a book 
was to be issued, and at the great number of orders already 
received for it. 

In the compilation of this volume there has been no 
attempt at any systematic arrangement of subjects, modi- 
fication of ideas, or changes of phraseology. Although many 
of the articles it contains were written in the hurry always 
incident to the duties of the editor of a daily paper, and 
would, no doubt, have been more polished and pungent had 
the writer bestowed longer time upon them ; yet we give them 



VlU INTRODUCTION. 

mainly as found, with the occasional changes made necessary 
where only a portion of an article is selected. 

The greatest embarrassment met with in compiling this 
work, has been to select from the great mass of materials 
before me such articles and extracts as most distinctly bear 
the impress of the wonderful genius, and give the clearest 
conception of the noble impulses and settled convictions of 
the writer. 

I have gathered up but a few " chips " from among many 
— all hewn out by the skilled hand of a master builder. But 
the "basket" is full, and I send it forth knowing it will carry 
good cheer and blessing to some homes and hearts, and, I 
trust, to many. H. A. T. 

Hudson, Wis., February, 1874. 



LUTE A. TAYLOR. 



T UTE A. TAYLOR was born in Norfolk, St Lawrence 
-"-^ county. New York, September 14th, 1835. His father 
died when Lute was but eight years of age, leaving his mo- 
ther, with a family of five children, in destitute circumstances. 
He was, therefore, from his early boyhood, compelled to a life 
of toil. He earned with his own hands the means to support 
himself, and to acquire a thorough academical education. 
He very early gave evidence of excellent literary taste and 
abilities. 

In the fall of 1856 he moved to River Falls, Pierce county, 
Wisconsin, and in June of the following year he issued the 
initial number of his first newspaper — the " River Falls 
Journal." In the spring of 1861 he removed the "Journal" 
office to Prescott, Wis., where, until 1869, he published the 
" Prescott Journal." In August, 1869, he entered upon a 
broader field of journalism, becoming one of the publishers 
and the editor-in-chief of the La Crosse " Morning Leader.* 
This position he filled until a few months prior to his death. 

In his career as an editor he was distinguished by a keen 
wit, a bright and vigorous style, and great range of subjects. 
His fame was justly high, and his ability was well known 
and appreciated by a wide circle of readers. 

Mr. Taylor was appointed Assistant Assessor of Internal 
Revenue, on the organization of that bureau of service, and 
very soon after, on the ist of January, 1864, he received the 



Id LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

appointment as Assessor of the Sixth Congressional District 
of Wisconsin, and continued in that office until its abolition, 
in the spring of 1873. On the designation of La Crosse 
as a port of entry, in the summer of 1873, Mr. Taylor was 
appointed surveyor of the port, which position he held at the 
time of his death. 

Mr. Taylor died at his home in La Crosse, Wis., of con- 
gestion of the lungs, after an illness of a week, on the nth 
day of November, 1873. 

It is surely an easy task to praise a friend, but to praise 
him wisely is not easy. There are a great many who loved 
Lute A. Taylor looking on as I write, and their afilection for 
him will make them severe critics. They will hardly let the 
right intention excuse poor work. Nevertheless, as he was 
generous himself, it may be hoped that his friends are gener- 
ous also, and that they will read " the lines between the lines," 
and so fulfill that which is lacking in this attempt. 

The most of those who will read these words knew him 
by thought, if not by sight. He had a wide acquaintance, as 
the sorrow at his death has made known. It seems that 
those who did know him nearly, were apt to speak of him to 
others. 

There are people whom you meet and forget instantly, 
who speak, and no one listens — people with the minus sign 
— nothing to give. If you remember them at all, it is that 
they have borrowed something. Lute Taylor had life, and 
that abundantly ; threw oft" light and heat like a sun. Men 
remembered that they had met him, and his sayings did not 
pass away. " His presence was a festival." He lifted one 
out of a low mood on to rising ground. Men caught courage 
and good cheer by contact with him. He reconciled one to 
being human. " Bright is the sun, O Frenchman, when thou 
comest to visit us ! " said the Chief of the Illinois to Pere 



LUTE TAYLOR'S CHIP BASKET. U 

Marquette. Our friend had this power to brighten a dull 
landscape, to let the light in and chase away the shadows. 
Nature made him a welcome guest in the homes and hearts 
of men. 

The evening of his lecture, perhaps, was stormy, and the 
people gathered together might have been wet outside and 
gloomy within. He cured all that in five. minutes. It was 
something like what was done at the wedding at Cana of 
Galilee. He began with a benediction ; there was a color 
and " bead " in what he said that restored the circulation. 
Men with blank faces, rayless of expression since childhood, 
felt the blood coming to the surface, and began to look hu- 
man with laughter and tears. It was worth a good deal to 
see this smiting of the rock and to find that it was moist at 
the center. 

Taylor was a natural man, sinless of the self-conscious- 
ness that murders so many. He lost himself in the theme 
of his discourse, and in the melody he chanted was able to 
put his purpose above himself. It is a rare gift ; without it 
there is no easy attitude, or free, brave stroke possible. I think 
that Taylor saved more of his childhood than most men — 
was not spoiled by life. If he failed to learn our prudence, 
he also neglected to acquire our suspicion and miserable 
doubt of all the good we see. He died without making this 
grievous gain that costs us a good deal to get, and makes us 
sorry to keep. Taylor was one of those who, when they die, 
make the world seem thinly inhabited. He was not as other 
men are. The. majority of all who have lived to middle age 
have declared that there was no use in it — that life was a 
barren errand, no gain in doing it, except weariness. Perhaps 
they all started with a purpose to pick berries for market, 
but before noon they looked in the pail, and had so few, 
that they concluded that they might as well eat them, and 



12 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

did it, and so have gone home ashamed. Thoreau says that 
" the boy gathers materials for a temple, and then, when he is 
thirty, concludes to build a woodshed." We are, most of us, 
acquainted with that boy. We shall see him putting his head 
on his hand, and thinking of his childish purpose — the beauty 
of it, and, alas ! the vanity of it. That he should ever have 
thought to have kept a sentiment in such a world as this ! 
Then he ceases to grow, and begins to wither and to shrink. 

'In his heart is the wind of Autumn, 
And the first fall of the snow." 

There are signs that^ navigation is about to close. The 
generous impulse and ready belief of youth are being fro- 
zen in ; the fire is going out. Once in a while the Rachel 
within lifts up a lament for the slain children of hope, but 
more and more faintly ; there are plenty of worldly maxims to 
hush her with. 

But there was one among us who had not made this fail- 
ure and fall. Our friend had kept his heart. " Blessed are 
they that hear the joyful sound." Taylor had an ear for it, 
detected it, where we hear only the doleful. How quick was 
his recognition, how prompt his praise of anything good in 
the work of his fellows ! 

In a little book called ''Back-Log Studies," there is a 
pleasant picture. It is a day of winter storm ; wild snow- 
drifts blown against the windows of the cellar kitchen of a 
farm house. A boy sits in the chimney-coi'ner reading about 
Burgoyne and the Indian wars. "John," says the mother, 
''you'll burn your head to a crisp in that heat." But John 
does not hear. He is storming the plains of Abraham just 
now. "Johnny, dear, bring in a stick of wood." How can 
Johnny bring in wood when he is in that defile with Braddock, 
and the Indians are popping at him from behind every tree? 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 13 

The childhood of Taylor was in the days of the back- 
log, the forestick, and the tallow candle. Days of the stage 
driver, and of Walter Scott's novels. There was little to read, 
and that little was good. Luke's " Lives of Saints," and Plu- 
tarch's " Lives of Heroes." I think something of the charm 
of his manner, and quaintness of his speech, was due to these 
early associations. He was old-fashioned. The memory of 
the old stories read in the firelight was very bright in him, 
and gave his conversation the glow of the early time, when 
we did not have to import a man from Switzerland, in order 
to possess one who had " no time to make money." 

I believe that the impediment in his speech was a blessing 
to it — delayed it, as the drawing of a bow delays the arrow. 
It was as a dam ; when the sentence broke over, it fell in 
power of volume to turn the wheel of the mill, and in beauty 
of spray to please the eye of the miller. 

I believe that if you "improve" the trout brook, by pick- 
ing the rocks out of its bed, and by straightening its channel, 
you will be sorry. Let every man glory in his infirmities. 
Hindrances help — the kitemaker knows it, and God knows 
it, and makes his men according, giving them weights to 
carry. 

I do not know that I can prove to a stranger and an un- 
believer that Taylor was a man of genius. I believe that all 
who knew him felt that he was. The work that some men 
are permitted to do is greater than they are. We trace the 
works of Shakspeare back to the poor player, and cannot so 
account for them. And again, some men are greater than 
their work ; what they do is only a sign. Taylor was never 
brought into action. There were reserves in him that were 
never called to the front. He died, leaving a mass of unfin- 
ished business. He thought that life was a long summer day. 
It was not, for him, even a short winter day. Who thought 



14 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

that he would be called at noon? So with him, the morning 
was used in doing chores, in going on necessary errands ; 
perhaps he was gone longer than was necessary ; also, in 
chatting with the neighbors who dropped in, the time flew 
by, and the day for him was done. 

We miss the master; he is gone, leaving few designs 
drawn on the trestle-board. We believe they were drawn in 
his mind, and that he had the power and will to build accord- 
ing to them, and make his works his witnesses. 

It is not easy to enter on a literary career — easy enough, 
if fortunate, to continue it. We must do some things before 
we can sit down to a task that is done on such long time as 
one's first literary work. 

The question of "bread" does come in. Burns must 
plow the daisy under, and then, if he has ti7ne^ he can lift it 
up to bloom in a poem immortal — an unfading flower of a 
not transient summer. 

I take little stock in the present blessing said to be dis- 
guised in poverty. It may work out something for us 
hereafter, but in the life that now is, it is a good deal of a 
curse. It consumes the days of youth, and postpones the 
task that has no money in it to the days that may come, and 
find us in no mood for working worthily, or past all work, 
dead under the snow. 

If we were assured a reasonably long life, we could, per- 
haps, afford to spend thirty or forty years in fighting, and 
slaying, and burying past all resurrection the wolf at the 
door, and then go in, and still have time to do the thing we 
want to do. 

As it is, the life is worn away in getting a living, and 
there is little or nothing over. The miller has taken the grist 
for toll. The fate that sets Burns to plowing is as an IndioJi 
wko makes aa arrow-kead out of a diamond. 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 15 

The man of whom I am writing had no complaint of this 
kind to make. I make it for him. He bided his time — earned 
a book, and looked into it, and laid it down, to go to work at 
anything that offered ; cut his own way, made his own clear- 
ing. So it is that there is so little of what he has done in the 
line of his genius. His common conversation was evidence 
enough of the unwrought wealth that lay under. What was 
carelessly tossed up on the surface was a sufficient sign. 

He was thoroughly human, and so had faults. But, if 
the flaws had all been ground down, and ground out, he 
would still be of rare size. His faults were of the kind that 
make us sorry and not angry. With great gifts come great 
dangers. Lute Taylor was not what he ought to have been ; 
but when you told him so, it was no news to him ; it was a 
thought familiar enough. Some men need a logical argument 
to convince them that they are sinners. They are so prudent 
and sly in concealing their sin from others that they forget 
where it is themselves. Taylor was not of that kindred ; 
never numbed and discouraged his conscience by disputing 
its voice, but confessed judgment. 

An extract from Carlyle's words, concerning another, ex- 
presses the truth of him : " Who is called the man after God's 
own heart? David, the Hebrew king, had fallen into sins 
enough ; there was no want of sin, and, therefore, unbelievers 
sneer, and ask. Is this your man according to God's heart? 
The sneer, T must say, seems to me but a shallow one. What 
are faults, what are the outward details of a life, if the inner 
secret of it, the remorse, temptations, the often baffled, never 
ended struggle of it, be forgotten ? David's life and history, 
as written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider the truest 
emblem ever given us of a man's moral progress and warfare 
here below. All earnest souls will ever discern in it the faith- 
ful struggle of an earnest human soul toward what is good 



i6 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

and best. Struggle often baffled — sore baffled, driven as into 
entire wreck ! Yet a struggle never ended — ever with tears, 
repentance, true, unconquerable purpose — begun anew." 

There is, O reader ! sin, and sin : we must distinguish be- 
tween the sin of impulse, the outward stain, and that which 
dyes the soul in the grain. The outcast girl of the street is 
forgiven. The whip of cords is braided for the respectable 
trader who has an office in the temple. Envy, malice, un- 
charity — these are of the brood who gnaw from within out — 
leave the man hollow to the whitewash. Of this generation 
of serpents, the heart of Lute Taylor knew nothing. 

We must make the distinction, for it is wide. Richard 
Yates, in his last speech, after alluding to the way sundry 
Christian statesmen once had of using him, and his infirmity 
to point a moral, and then calling attention to the late 
appearance of the names of these brethren in the " little 
memorandum book " of Oakes Ames, said : " My friends and 
neighbors, I want you to remember that if my hand does 
tremble, it is clean." 

Nature forbids some people to be generous in judgment ; 
but there is always a chance for an attempt to be just. 
There's a choice in sinners. We rather have the prodigal 
son for a neighbor than his elder brother. And I judge 
from the parable that we agree wdth Christ. Let us look 
at one another " at our best," and believe that so we shall 
all appear at our last. 

The face of Lute Taylor is before me as I write. None 
more kindly under the sun. Children believed in it, and old 
men. You can't deceive instinct and experience both. You 
can't wear a good face thirty-eight years without the help of 
a good heart. The lines are graven from within. There is 
no beauty at that age, except the beauty of thought Th^ 
fashion that it wears reveals the taste of the spirit. 



LUTE TAYLOR'S CHIP BASKET. jy 

" Thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts," sings Long, 
fellow. It seems so. The chief book of Taylor's childhood 
m his last days again took its place. Being asked, "What 
shall I read to you?" he answered, "Something from Paul 
I want something that has meat in it." And so was read to 
him that wonderful fifteenth chapter of Paul's first letter to 
the Corinthians. 

With these words for his company- rod and staff to com- 
fort him in his journey through the valley of the shadow of 
death -we have, in sorrow and hope, bidden him "Adieu," 

and "TILL WE MEET AGAJN." 



Lute Taylor's Chip Basket. 



A LECTURE. 



MARGARET FULLER. 



MARGARET FULLER, 



MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI Is the most 
noteworthy and remarkable woman whom 
America has produced. Without scepter, or crown 
or throne, she was still a queen. Into whatever 
circle she came, she was its central figure; always 
the inspiring teacher, the wise counselor, the faith- 
ful friend. It is now but twenty years since the 
remorseless waves of the Atlantic swallowed up all 
of her that was mortal, yet she already wears the 
luster of an historic name. Her pictures do not line 
our albums, nor hang upon our parlor walls, yet her 
influence is wide and widening and her fame is 
assured. 

Women sometimes win an enduring place in his- 
tory, and are welcomed into the warm regard and 
affection of the world, simply because they are the 
wives of eminent men. It is doing no discredit to 
the honorable name of Martha Washington to say, 
that in almost every American town there are women 
who, in natural endowment and variety of achieve- 
ment, are her equals at least. It was the relation 
in which she stood to the great man who is the cen- 
tral figure of our early history, that has made her 



22 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

name a household word wherever the English lan- 
guage is spoken, and, with a few notable exceptions, 
it is to a similar cause that other well known Ameri- 
can women owe their prominence. 

It was not thus with Margaret Fuller. She rose 
to her position of eminence by the unaided force 
of her own great achievement. She ruled in her 
own right, and there was none to dispute her title to 
the queendom ; and the fact that her life and history 
may not be familiar to the mass of her countrymen 
and countrywomen, detracts nothing from the splen- 
dor of her genius, and will only retard, but not 
defeat, its final recognition. 

There are thoughts which are germinal thoughts; 
there are minds whose conceptions are so large, 
and whose logic is so severe, that they must be 
interpreted into common phrase before they are 
universally accepted and understood. Thus the 
beauties of Solomon's Song, or the almost equally 
divine sonnets of Shakspeare, are often unrecognized 
until they dribble out to us, one beauty at a time, 
in the verse of lesser poets. So the great writers 
upon political economy reach the people mainly as 
their ideas are retailed out in articles of the news- 
paper press. 

It is, fortunately, not necessary to the enjoyment 
of thoughts or fancies that we should know to whom 
we are indebted for them. In the sweet summer 
time the air of city courts and country lanes is 
musical with the songs of love, and the enjoyment 
of the singers is no less perfect and complete be- 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 23 

cause they do not know from whence the sentiment 
and the melody have come. In this manner the 
songs of Burns fill all the earth, and, in like manner, 
the thoughts of Margaret Fuller inspire and control 
very many who do not know to whom they owe their 
impulse and their inspiration. 

The time of her advent marked a new era in 
American life and literature. She was one of those 
who gave to scholarship a broader culture ; to specu- 
lation, freer play ; to philosophy, a bolder range ; to 
religion, a firmer faith. The sermons of Channing 
and Clarke, the essays of Emerson, the romance of 
Hawthorne, and the editorials of Greeley, were alike 
colored by contact with her masterful mind. 

Great as she was in the domain of intellect, her 
mind did not dwarf her heart. Always the true, 
noble, loving woman, seeking truth at whatever 
sacrifice, and accepting it at whatever cost, in her 
work of severe self-culture she never forgot the 
struggles of others, or neglected to reach them a 
helping hand. How broad and catholic her sym- 
pathies were, may be inferred from the following 
passage, taken from one of her earlier poems : 

"Happy are all who reach that crystal shore. 
And bathe in heavenly day ; 
Happiest are they who high the banner bore, 

To marshal others on the way ; 
Or waited for them, fainting and wayworn 
By burthens overborne." 

I apprehend that in this day of universal suffrage 
— this day of deification of the people — when nu- 



24 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

merical majority is made the test of truth, and 
success the criterion of merit, — that it will do us 
good to turn from the contemplation of the dead 
level of the masses, and lift our eyes to meet the 
radiance of some surpassing life. We need to cool 
our admiration of majorities by a little devout and 
reverent hero worship. " Vox populi vox Dei'' is one 
of the most subtle forms of falsehood with which 
the devil ever calmed the fervor of noble aspiration 
or choked the utterance of struggling truth. The 
voice of the people is not the voice of God, unless 
it be a Godlike people who speak. That voice is 
more often audible to us only when echoed back 
from the understanding hearts of the saints and 
sages of the time — only when translated into the 
lives and words of such rare and gifted souls as she 
of whom I speak to you. 

It is necessarily the lot of most of us to be en- 
gaged in other than intellectual pursuits. We are 
not brought by our daily walk into contact with 
sages and poets; we win our bread from an earth 
whose mysteries are not open to us ; our daily inter- 
course is more likely to stifle than encourage the 
sparks of love and faith in our breasts, and so there 
is the more necessity that we keep alive within us 
the conviction of the divinity of our origin and the 
possibilities of our future by a reverent study of the 
words and deeds of those who have lived on the 
mountain heights of human experience, and faced 
two worlds at once. 

Margaret Fuller was born in Cambridgeport, Mass., 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 25 

in 1810. Her fattier was educated at Harvard, and 
was a lawyer and a politician. She speaks of him 
as being largely endowed with that sagacious energy 
which New England society was so well fitted to 
develop. The great object of his ambition was to 
hold an honored place among his fellow men, and 
provide a comfortable and pleasant home for his 
family. 

Of her mother she says : " She was one of those 
fair and flower-like natures which sometimes spring 
up beside the most dusty highways of life — a 
creature not to be shaped into a merely useful 
instrument, but bound by one law to the blue sky, 
the dew, and the frolic birds. Of all persons I have 
ever known, she had in her most of the angelic — 
of that spontaneous love for every living thing — for 
man and beast and tree, — which restores the golden 
age." 

Margaret early gave proof of her wonderful power. 
Her father was proud of her, and stimulated her 
mind to over-work. At six years of age she read 
Latin with ease. As she thoroughly understood the 
mechanism of the language, she was required to 
give the thought in the briefest and best arranged 
language possible. Thus her mind was early trained 
to work with clearness and precision ; but this forcing 
process told fearfully on her health. The poetic, 
dreaming element, strong in every child, was doubly 
strong in her, and she became the victim of nervous- 
ness, and the whole state of her being was painfully 
active and intense. It was a wonder to the family 



26 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

that she was never willing to go to bed, but, using 
her own language, "they did not know that as 
soon as the light was taken away she seemed to see 
colossal faces advancing slowly towards her, the eyes 
dilating, and each feature swelling loathsomely as 
they came, till at last, when they were about to close 
upon her, she started up with a shriek, which drove 
them away, but only to return when she lay down 
again. They did not know that when she went to 
sleep it was to dream of horses trampling over her, 
and to wake in fright, as she had just read in her 
Virgil, of being among trees that dropped with 
blood, where she walked and walked, and could not 
get out, while the blood became a pool and plashed 
over her feet, and soon she dreamed it would reach 
her lips. No wonder the child arose and walked in 
her sleep, moaning, over the house, till once they 
came and waked her ; and when she told what she 
had been dreaming of, her father sharply told her 
to ' leave off thinking of such nonsense, or she would 
be crazy,' never dreaming that he was himself the 
cause of all these horrors of the night." 

But these spectral illusions wore away; the tone 
of her mind became more healthy, and study ceased 
to be task work. 

When fifteen years of age, she gives the following 
account of her studies : 

" I rise a little before five, walk an hour, and then 
practice on the piano until seven, when we break- 
fast. Next I read French — ' Sismondi's Literature 
of the South of Europe' — till eight; then two or 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 27 

three lectures in * Brown's Philosophy.' About half- 
past nine I go to Mr. Parker's school and study 
Greek till twelve, when, school being dismissed, I 
recite, go home and practice again until dinner, at 
two. Sometimes, if the conversation is very agree- 
able, I lounge for half-an-hour over the dessert, 
though rarely so lavish of time. Then, when I can, 
I read two hours in Italian, but I am often inter- 
rupted. At six I walk, or take a drive. Before 
going to bed, I play or sing for half-an-hour or so, 
to make all sleepy, and, about eleven, retire to write 
a little while in my journal, or a series of character- 
istics, which I am fitting up according to advice. 
Thus, you see, I am learning Greek and making 
acquaintance with metaphysics and French and 
Italian literature." 

At twenty years of age, she was again in Cam- 
bridge, and beneath the shadows of venerable 
Harvard. She was gladly welcomed into equal 
companionship with the strongest thought and ripest 
culture of the day. She had wealth and wisdom to 
give as well as to receive. 

* * * * * * 

It is not necessary to dwell upon the details of 
her life, which, until her visit to Europe, was barren 
of exciting interest, as the lives of scholars and 
thinkers usually are. 

Her occupation was divided between teaching, 
writing for the press — the New York " Tribune " 
mainly — and authorship; but, wherever placed, she 
was an intellectual magnet, drawing to herself all 



2^ LUTE TAYLOR*S CHIP BASKET. 

that was rare in culture and rich in intellectual en- 
dowment. 

She combined the splendor of power and the 
possession of intellect with the grace of youth and 
the charm of womanhood, and was at once a per- 
sonal impulse and an intellectual inspiration in the 
lives of such men as Clarke, Channing, Ripley, 
Greeley and Emerson. 

It was in conversation that her mind found freest 
play and most congenial occupation. James Free- 
man Clarke says : 

" She did many things well, but nothing so well 
as she talked. For some reason or other she could 
•never deliver herself in print as she did with her lips. 
Her conversation I have seldom heard equaled. 
Though remarkably fluent and select, it was nei- 
ther fluency nor choice diction, nor wit nor senti- 
ment, that gave it its peculiar power ; but accuracy 
of statement, keen discrimination, and a certain 
weight of judgment, which contrasted strongly and 
charmingly with the youth and sex of the speaker." 

Emerson says of her evening conversations, when 
she was a visitor at his house : 

"They interested me in every manner; talent, 
memory, wit, stern introspection, poetic play, re- 
ligion, the finest personal feeling, the aspects of the 
future ; each followed each in full activity, and left 
me, I remember, enriched, and somewhat astonished 
by the gifts of my guest. Her topics were numerous, 
but the cardinal points of poetry, love and religion, 
were never far oif." 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 29 

Possessed of this wonderful magnetic power, able 
to startle, charm or convince at will, it is no wonder 
that her friends were warmly attached to her, and 
she to them. So tender was her affection that she 
made her friends' souls her own, and, like a guardian 
genius, identified herself with their fortunes. She 
was everywhere a welcome guest. Her arrival was a 
holiday, and so was her abode. With her broad web 
of relations to so many noble friends, she seemed like 
the queen of some parliament of love, who carried 
the key to all confidences, and to whom every ques- 
tion was finally referred ; and yet there was so much 
of intellectual aim and activity breathed through 
her alliances, as to give a dignity to them all. Chan- 
ning says of her : " She was indeed the friend. This 
was her vocation. Into whatever home she entered, 
she brought a benediction of truth, justice, tolerance 
and honor. She knew, if not by experience, then 
by no questionable intuition, how to interpret the 
inner life of every man and woman, and by inter- 
preting she could soothe and strengthen. To 
associates, her presence seemed to touch even com- 
mon scenes and daily cares with splendor, as when, 
through the scud of a rain-storm, sunbeams break 
from serene blue openings, crowning familiar things 
with glory. To sustain the intimate personal rela- 
tions which she did to so many representative men 
of her time, was a higher privilege than has ever 
fallen to the lot of any other American woman. 

" There are many people who talk as if there were 
but two extremes of ^elatio^ which woman can sus- 



30 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

tain to man. She must be a pretty, tricky, artful 
creature, beguiling him of his re*ason, taking him 
captive through his senses, the panderer to his 
pleasures, at once his tyrant and his slave ; or she 
must arm herself against him, accuse him, abuse 
him, as at once the sole author of her wrongs, the 
source of all her miseries. The fair, open land be- 
tween the serene and sacred land of friendship, 
where men and women may meet in human sym- 
pathy, in kindred pursuits, in wide thoughts and in 
beneficent action, we hear constantly spoken of as 
a debatable, if not an impossible, meeting-ground. 
It, doubtless, is for the people who express this 
opinion, but it never has been, and never will be, 
for those men and women who recognize and revere 
in each other the equal human nature which each 
receive from God. Always man needs woman to be 
his friend. He needs her clearer vision, her subtler 
insight, her swifter thought, her winged soul, her 
pure and tender heart. Always woman needs man 
to be her friend. She needs the vigor of his pur- 
pose, the ardor of his will, his calmer judgment, his 
braver force of action, his reverence and his devo- 
tion. Thus the mystic bond of sex, which binds 
one half the universe in counterpart and balance to 
the other, gives even to the friendship of man and 
woman its finest charm, enabling each, only through 
the other, to preserve the perfect equipoise of intel- 
lect and soul. Such a friend was Margaret Fuller 
to the men who still speak her name with reverent 
tenderness." 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 3 1 

As a writer, she was critical rather than creative. 
Her pubHshed works are, " Summer on the Lakes," 
"Papers on Literature and Art," "Woman in the 
Nineteenth Century," and more valuable, perhaps, 
than either of these, the extracts from her journals 
and letters, which her biographers have preserved. 
Her last and greatest work perished irrevocably in 
the wreck which closed her earthly career ; but some 
idea of its fire and force can be gathered from pas- 
sages in her letters from Italy, which are preserved 
and presented in her memoirs. 

Her " Papers on Literature and Art " are among 
the most valuable contributions to American criti- 
cism. Her review of Longfellow's poems startled, 
if it did not convince, the world of letters ; and no 
one has ever dissected the nature and stated the 
effect of Byron's poems, with so clear an insight and 
so truthful a discrimination, as she has done. It is 
especially interesting to note the estimation in which 
Margaret Fuller held the author of " Childe Harold," 
and the rank among poets to which she assigns him. 

Byron's life was both a tragedy and a farce. He 
was essentially an actor. A vein of insincerity per- 
vades all his poems. His thin mask of levity does 
not hide the skepticism which lies uneasy and sor- 
rowful beneath it ; nor when his misanthropic fit is 
on does his sorrow strike us as very earnest and 
real. He would have us believe that his richest 
wines were powdered with the dust of graves; yet 
he frequently took more of that wine than was good 
for him. It was in the winter of 1814, while dis- 



32 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

robing after balls, haunted, in all probability, by- 
eyes in whose light he was happy enough, that he 
wrote his " Lara," and pictured death as 

"That sleep the loveliest, since it dreams the least." 

This was meant to take away the reader's breath, 
and, no doubt, after penning it, Byron betook him- 
self to bed with a sense of supreme cleverness ; yet, 
contrasted with Shakspeare's far-out-looking and 
thought-heavy lines, where death is represented by 
the same image, it glitters like tinsel instead of shin- 
ing like gold. 

Margaret Fuller speaks of Byron's poems as his- 
torically valuable as records of that strange malady, 
that sickness of the soul, which cankers so visibly 
the rose of youth. This sickness of feeling finds 
its highest water-mark in him. He has lived through 
this experience for us — has shown that the natural 
fruits of indulgence in such a temper are not to be 
desired ; and, as grief loses half its fascination when 
we find that others have endured the same and lived 
through it, so, she thinks the evil has been greatly 
lessened since he has so fully illustrated it. This is 
but a bold exhibit of what she states with logical 
exactness and convincing force. 

As an illustration of the clearness of her thought 
and the felicity of her expression, I give her defini- 
tion of an epic, as contrasted with an occasional 
poem : 

" An epic, a drama, must have a fixed form in the 
mind of the poet from the first, and copious draughts 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 33 

of ambrosia, quaffed in the heaven of thought ; soft, 
fanning gales, and bright light from the outward 
world, give muscle and bloom — that is, give life to 
the skeleton. But occasional poems must be moods, 
and a mood cannot have a form fixed and perfect, 
any more than a wave of the sea." 

Margaret Fuller was a radical. I like that word 
radical. It stirs the blood like a challenge to arms. 
The radicals are the trumpeters of truth. They 
people the picket lines of progress. Margaret Ful- 
ler, I repeat, was a radical — not a blind iconoclast, 
ruthlessly attacking cherished forms and customs 
which have crystallized into laws, but a wise prophet, 
who, seeing a fairer future beckoning to us, patiently 
but persistently strove to clasp its outstretched hands. 
She did not believe that customs and laws were set 
up as barriers to progress, but rather that they are 
tents of a night upon the camping-ground of life, to 
be struck whenever truth puts the bugle to her lips 
and sounds an advance. Wrong, though rooted in 
antiquity and fortified by innumerable precedents, 
gained no homage from her; but right found her a 
faithful follower, however few its followers might be. 
She clearly discerned the injustice of social and the 
iniquity of political life, and the fire of her indigna- 
tion burned fiercely against oppression and villainy 
in every form. We must remember that many of 
the asperities of law have been softened in the last 
twenty-five years; that when she talked and wrote 
the sphere of woman was much more restricted than 
now; that slavery then defiled the land with its 
3 



34 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

presence, burdened it with its sin, and darkened it 
with the gloom of threatened disaster. 

None saw the magnitude of legally organized 
cruelty more clearly than she; none had a firmer 
faith that the day of deliverance would come. She 
saw, with the poet, 

"Right forever on the scaffold, 
Wrong forever on the throne." 

but she believed, with him. 

Yet that scafibld sways the future, and behind the dim un- 
known 

Standeth GoD, within the shadow, keeping watch above his 
own. 

The movement called, for want of a better name, 
the Woman's Rights movement, found one of its 
pioneers and its most powerful champions in her. 
She threw down the gauntlet with an air of knightly 
defiance. Almost alone in her convictions, she 
startled timidity and shocked conservatism by ex- 
claiming of women, " Let them be sea captains, if 
they will." Her "Woman in the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury " is the most powerful plea which has ever been 
made for putting woman on a par, politically, with 
man, and it required a good deal of valor to stand 
unmoved amid the shower of pubHc squibs and pri- 
vate sneers called out by her demand. Now it is 
getting fashionable to espouse this cause; she de- 
fended it in its despised infancy. 

More than a quarter of a century ago she wrote : 
" Let man trust woman entirely, and give her every 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 35 

privilege already acquired for himself — elective fran- 
chise, tenure of property, and liberty to speak in 
public assemblies. Nature has pointed out her 
ordinary sphere by the circumstances of her physical 
existence. If here and there the gods send their 
missives through women as through men, let them 
speak without remonstrance. * * * * 

Neither let men fear to lose their domestic deities. 
Woman is born for love, and it is impossible to keep 
her from seeking it. Man should deserve her love 
as an inheritance, rather than seize and guard it like 
a prey." 

Others may have felt as keenly as she the injustice 
to woman, imbedded in our social polity and ideas, 
but there was no other one so fitted by thought, by 
culture, by position, and by fearlessness, to discuss 
the subject thoroughly and present the argument in 
its amplest proportions. Much that has been accom- 
plished in enlarging the sphere and increasing the 
opportunities of women, is justly due to her initial 
labors ; and now, when the time seems to be ap- 
proaching when woman will be called upon calmly 
and authoritatively to decide for herself whether the 
ballot is too rude and perilous a weapon for her 
delicate hand, the words of Margaret Fuller will be 
consulted, not more deferentially, but far more 
widely, than they have hitherto been. 

Candor compels me to confess that while I can- 
not break the force of her logic upon this subject, 
neither can I accept all of its conclusions. And, I 
believe, that in later years, when a husband wore her 



36 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

wifely love as a jewel, and her low lullaby stilled 
the clamor of her baby boy, there was then wrought 
in her philosophy something of the change which 
was wrought in Tennyson's " Princess," when love, 
the magician, touched her with his all-conquering 
wand. 
/ A woman without religion is a star without radi- 
ance — a flower without perfume. It is interesting, 
therefore, to note the religious character of Margaret 
Fuller. 

I think I have never read of a person more pro- 
foundly religious than she. Her journals, her letters 
and her life are full of humility, piety and prayer. 
The fact that she was the intimate friend of Emer- 
son, that she was closely connected with the move- 
ments of the Transcendentalists in New England — 
that for two years she edited the " Dial," the organ 
of that party — led a good many good orthodox 
people to doubt the soundness of her religious ex- 
perience. A transcendentalist she was, in the full 
meaning of the word. Her religion di,d indeed 
transcend the religion of commoner and meaner 
minds. She was a "pilgrim from the idolatrous 
world of creeds and rituals, to the temple of the 
living God in the soul." " The peaceful benediction 
of heaven sounded forth to her in flowers and stars ; 
in the poetry, art and heroism of all ages ; in the 
aspirations of her own spirit, and in the budding 
promise of the time." That religion which looks 
reverently to God, and lovingly upon man — that 
religion which cares for the temporal as well as the 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 37 

eternal good of our fellows — that religion which 
permeates every path of life, and sheds a sacred 
light on every duty — that religion which knows the 
sorrow that ever springs from earth and feels the 
consolation which descends to meet it from above 
— that religion which walks the ways of life in close 
companionship with the invisible form of one like 
unto the Son of Man; that religion was Margaret 
Fuller's. Horace Greeley says of her : " I never 
met another being in whom the aspiring hope of 
immortality was so strengthened into profoundest 
conviction. She did not believe in a future and un- 
ending state of existence — she hiew it, and lived in 
the full splendor of its dawning light." 

In the spring of 1846, rich in experiences, rich 
in culture, and rich in friends, heralded by her 
reputation as a scholar and writer, Margaret de- 
parted for Europe. She was cordially received in 
England, and found ready access to such society as 
that of Wordsworth, DeQuincy, Dr. Chalmers, Car- 
lyle, Mary Howitt, Joanna Baillie, and others like 
them. Here, too, she first met Joseph Mazzini, the 
Washington of Italy, and here began that acquaint- 
ance which, amidst the subsequent storms of the 
Italian revolution, ripened into congenial confidence 
and sacred trust. 

In December she went to Paris, where the best 
literary society was open to her, and she became the 
friend of George Sand and Berenger. Here she 
had frequent opportunities of hearing the great 
actress, Rachel, and her criticisms are almost as 



38 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

grand as a tragedy. She says of Rachel's eye: "It 
was magnificent to see the dark cloud give out such 
sparks, each one fit to deal a separate death." 

In May, 1847, she went to Rome. She was warmly 
welcomed by the distinguished Americans resident 
there, and found easy access to the best native 
society. 

Here a new world opened to her. From infancy 
the Roman character had been the object of her 
admiration. Rome was to her a magic word. The 
Roman was an emperor. The dignity of command, 
the inflexible purpose of will, was stamped upon him. 

Here in the most obscure places the spirits of the 
mighty dead crowded upon her ; here the old kings, 
the consuls, the emperors, the warriors of eagle eye 
and remorseless beak returned to her ; the toga-clad 
procession swept across the scene ; innumerable 
temples glittered, and the Via Sacra swarmed with 
triumphal life once more. Here, too, a new world 
of love opened to her, and she found that 

"Tradition, snowy-bearded, leaned 
On romance, ever young." 

Going, one evening, with a party of friends, to 
attend vespers at St. Peter's, at the close of the ser- 
vice she became separated from her companions. 
After anxiously seeking for them some time, she was 
accosted by a young Italian, who politely asked if he 
could assist her. Failing to find her friends, he went 
to call a cab, but they had all departed, and he ac- 
companied her home. That courtly stranger was 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 



39 



OssoLi, and, a short time after, Margaret became his 
bride. Ossoli was of princely lineage, his family 
being one of the oldest in Rome. Himself a Liberal, 
his brothers were in the papal service. His father 
was dead, and the estate was unsettled. Ossoli 
wished to keep the marriage a secret until his affairs 
were arranged, lest the fact of his union with a Prot- 
estant should deprive him of his property. 

Margaret, some time after, removed to Rieti, where 
she became a mother. Of her child, the boy Angelo, 
it would be almost profane to repeat her words of 
praise. Of Ossoli, she says, " He is capable of the 
sacred love — the love passing that of woman. He 
has shown it to his father, to Rome and to me." 

Meanwhile the war-cloud broke, and the revolution 
of 1848 arrested the attention of the world. Of 
that lost struggle of Italy, she might not merely say, 
with the Grattan of Ireland's kindred effort half a 
century earlier, "I stood by its cradle — I followed 
its hearse," but she might fairly claim to have been 
a portion of its incitement, its animation, its inform- 
ing soul. Her husband was an officer in the Repub- 
lican army, and she bore more than a woman's part 
in its conflicts and its perils. Whether in council 
chamber with the chiefs, or in hospital wards with 
the dying, she was always helpful, untiring, resolute 
and brave ; and when at last, through the perfidy of 
a traitorous government, the dearest hopes of the 
people were drowned in blood, there was no heart 
more lofty in its defiance, no voice more eloquent in 
its exposure of the villainy, than her own. 



40 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

Weary in spirit, with the deep disappointments of 
the past year weighing heavily upon her, she spent 
the winter of 1849-50 in Florence. Here she was 
surrounded by a pleasant circle of American and 
English friends, and the last months of her Italian 
life were cheered by all the light that the presence 
of husband and boy and the companionship of gifted 
and noble natures could afford. 

Here she wrote of Mazzini : " Mazzini is immor- 
tally dear to me — a thousand times dearer for all 
the trial I saw made of him at Rome — dearer for 
all that he suffered. Many of his brave friends per- 
ished there. We who, less worthy, survive, would 
fain make up for the loss by our increased devotion 
to him — the purest, the most disinterested of patri- 
ots, the most affectionate of brothers." 

Beneath the ruins of the Roman Republic many 
private fortunes were swallowed up; and among 
them was Ossoli's, and he and Margaret decided to 
come to America. 

Many motives conspired to draw Margaret back 
to her native land. There was heart-weariness at 
the great reaction in Europe, desire of publishing 
her history of Italy — the fruit of her maturest 
thought — to the best advantage, and thereby doing 
justice to great principles and brave men, and the 
desire to be once more with youthful associates and 
family friends. 

On the 17th of May, 1850, they embarked on the 
ship Elizabeth. 

She trusted soon to greet loved ones on these 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 41 

western shores. Alas! she knew not that another 
way was opened for her — 

"To God's Eden-land, unknown." 

The captain of the vessel was a model New 
England .sailor, calm, courteous, brave ; and his 
young wife, who was with him, was a lady, gentle 
and refined. 

They had been at sea but a short time when the 
captain died of a malignant fever. Margaret's boy 
also sickened, but at length recovered, and sobered 
and saddened they could again hope, and enjoy the 
beauty of sea and sky, Margaret comforts the sor- 
rowing widow, puts the last touches to her book on 
Italy, and sings and plays with her happy boy. 

At noon on the i8th of July, the Elizabeth was 
off the Jersey coast, and the officer in command 
promised the passengers he would land them at New 
York in the morning. The weather was thick, the 
breeze strengthened into a tempest, the vessel made 
way with a rapidity no one dreamed of, and about 
4 o'clock in the morning, she struck Fire Island 
beach, off the shore of Long Island. 

I will not attempt to excite your feelings by a de- 
scription of the awful scene which followed. The 
captain's widow and a few of the sailors were saved; 
but the chivalric husband, the excelling wife and the 
promising boy were swallowed up by the hungry sea. 
When last seen, Margaret was sitting at the foot of 
the foremast, still clad in her nightdress, with her 
hair fallen loose about her shoulders. 



42 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

A great wave swept over the ship. It was over 
— that communion face to face with death ! It was 
over — and the prayer was granted, that " Ossoli, 
Angelo and I may go together, and that the anguish 
may be brief." 

This, then, O noble woman I was thy welcome 
home. Instead of the clasp of affection and the 
kiss of love — instead of high hopes realized and 
large ambitions filled, there was an idle lifeboat, a 
howling hurricane and a pitiless sea. 

Truly, " He maketh darkness his pavilion round 
about him — dark waters and thick clouds of the 
skies." 

But, though those clouds were tempest-torn and 
black with death, we may yet fain believe that their 
tops were golden in the sun, and through their broken 
rifts we can almost see the splendor shining, and 
hear a voice descending, saying with angelic accents, 
"All is lost ; but all is won." 



THE CHIP BASKET. 



[The most interesting department of Lute Taylor's paper, 
and the one in which he took the greatest pride, and loved 
most to labor, was his "Chip Basket." Here is what he said 
when he set it out for the first time, and asked his readers to 
assist in filling it, and test the flavor of its good cheer:] 

CHIPS are not useless. The hewer cleaves them 
off, thinking only of the timber which assumes 
desired form by their removal, and the chopper 
thoughtlessly spins them from his gleaming axe — 
yet they have a value of their own. There is bless- 
ing and brightness in them. They glow cheerily in 
comfortable homes, and bring warmth to shivering 
squalor's scanty hearth. 

Here we shall endeavor, week by week, to pick 
up the chips which the writers toss off at their toil, 
and make a pleasant warmth around which our 
readers will love to gather. 

Pleasant paragraphs, little poems, bits of sentiment, 
reverie, philosophy, and speculation — fruits gathered 
from spice islands, passed in the sea of reading — 
these will be gathered here, to be enjoyed, we trust, 
by those who read. 

Every newspaper reader knows there are favorite 
paragraphs which he meets with continually. They 



44 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

lead a curious, wandering life, sometimes going 
abroad triumphantly on the broad pages of a metro- 
politan paper, with an editorial preface, like a herald, 
to announce their presence, and again nestling unre- 
marked in the narrow columns of some obscure and 
struggling sheet. Their authorship may be forgotten, 
their history unknown, but their life is assured. 
Broad and catholic in feeling, they depend on 
neither time nor place for iriterest, but speak to the 
universal heart of man. The melody of the breeze 
and the light of the stars, the beauty of day and the 
grandeur of night are in them, and they pass sentinel 
editors unchallenged, and keep their place in news- 
paper columns by inherent right. Many such we 
hope to gather and present in due season. 

And the Chip Basket is wide, and will never be 
full. Our friends are invited to assist in the gath- 
ering. Around it will be the flavor of good cheer, 
of healthy sentiment, of kindly feeling, of a humor 
that may sparkle but will not sting. 

Religion is the final center of repose, the goal to 
which all things tend, apart from which man is a 
shadow, his very existence a riddle, and the stu- 
pendous scenes of nature which surround him as 
unmeaning as the leaves which the sibyl scattered 
in the wind. 

Meditation is to life what ballast is to a ship — 
to go safe and steady we must sometimes stop and 
think. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 45 

MIRAGE. 

[Extract from a letter to a friend.] 

In the days long ago, Frank, when you and I sat 
on hard benches at the district school house, wig- 
gling on our seats like the fat worms which we 
impaled on our fish-hooks in the holidays — in those 
days when we studied Olney, we were taught that 
mirage was located on the great deserts. You re- 
member how our boyish wonder was excited by the 
story of the travelers in the desert, weary, worn, 
seeking vainly for the saving spring, tortured beyond 
endurance by the hellish agonies of burning thirst, 
and how to their longing eyes there would sometimes 
come a vision beautiful as Paradise, a vision of cool- 
ing waters, of greenness and umbrage, and their 
eyes were lighted with new hope, and their weary 
feet strengthened with new vigor, as they pushed on 
toward the promised relief. But the taunting vision 
eludes their search, the mocking, impalpable oasis 
flees imperceptibly before them, and at last the cruel 
conviction is forced upon them that the pleasing 
picture is a phantom — and the horrid thirst burns 
fiercer, and the heart sinks in a deeper despair. This 
is mirage. 

But the geographer forgot to tell us, what is equally 
true — that more mirage hangs deceitfully about 
political capitals than desert travelers ever saw. The 
hopes which cluster around these places are none 
the less high, the pursuit is none the less careful and 



46 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

intent, the disappointment is none the less bitter, the 
despair is none the less crushing and complete. 

A man with compelling purpose, with tireless brain 
and an honorable ambition, fixes his heart on a de- 
sired place. Month after month and year after year 
he toils with indomitable perseverance, and unflag- 
ging zeal. At length the looked-for time arrives. 
Hopeful, almost exultant, he is sanguine of success, 
but a line from the executive, or the silent fall of 
bits of paper, and the prize struggled for with manly 
strength, coveted with intense desire, eludes his 
grasp, and the burning sands press not more piti- 
lessly the blistered feet of the desert traveler than 
the world looks pitilessly upon the disappointment 
which has thwarted the cherished purpose of his 
life. 

But not to political life alone does mirage lend its 
deceptive arts. The business man is often its victim; 
and over all the sky of youth it hangs its rosy colors, 
its pleasing tints, its glowing pictures of coming joys. 
The maiden, in the beauty and purity of a dawning 
womanhood, looks forward to a happy life of love, 
but 

"The cloud lands still before her lay, 
The mirage looms across her way;" 

and the boy, eager for manhood, with its toils and 
triumphs, looks forward to a goal which he may 
never reach — a prize he may never win. 

Blessed are they whose undoubting faith survives 
all disappointments, and from before whose hopeful 
eyes the mirage never fades away. 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET, 47 

But when we look, Frank, to the rest beyond, 
where faith shall find its fulfillment, hope its fruition, 
and love its reward — when we look over to that 
other shore of life — perhaps wishing to be there, 
yet shrinking from the passage — when a vision of 
the loveliness of that land cools the fever, and calms 
the strife of our daily lives, can it be that the beauty 
which beckons us, and the smiling joys which reach 
out welcoming hands, are like the fair delusions here 
— a mirage and a cheat? 

I do not believe it ; and trusting that you, my boy, 
may find, at last, that the mirage of life here is but 
a reflection from the reality of life hereafter, I am 
very truly yours. 

A Nickname. — The man who has won a nick- 
name and wears it gracefully, has the elements of 
popularity about him. The same instinct which 
leads a mother to apply diminutive phrases of en- 
dearment to her little ones is a universal instinct, 
one which we never outgrow, and which continually 
manifests itself in our form of addressing or speak- 
ing of those we love, trust or admire. 

The man who is known in his village or neighbor- 
hood as " Uncle " is never a cold, crabbed or selfish 
character. He is sure to have a generous heart, and 
wear a cheerful smile — there is integrity in him 
which men trust, and warmth around him which 
little children love to gather, and the term is a title 
of honor — more to be desired than that of "honor- 
able." 



48 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

Fat. — He is grand, stupendous, magnificent, sub- 
lime. In his imposing presence, in the great shadow 
of his rotund form, we are humiUty itself. 

He is bigness personified. 

He says his size and weight are a little unhandy. 
In sultry weather he feels too warm. 

He used to walk up the steps into his office, but 
it has become too dangerous. At present he is 
brought from his house on a dray, lifted into the 
office with a derrick, and handled during the day 
with a cant-hook. 

He was elected alderman. His ward is entitled 
to but three, and the other two have resigned. 

He is taxed as real estate. The city assessor re- 
cently had him surveyed and platted, and he figured 
up six forties and several out-lots. 

He is very large. 

His wife has to get a new marriage certificate 
every little while, in order to keep her title to him 
perfect, and we fear she may be guilty of bigamy in 
being married to so much of mankind. 

He really is fat. 

He is growing rapidly. 

There is no traveler equal to a good newspaper 
paragraph. Dr. Livingstone is not a circumstance 
in comparison. It gets lost and found, gets killed 
and revived, has its head taken off and a head put 
on, goes farther and often fares worse than any ad- 
venturer since the return of the heroes from the 
siege of Troy. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket 49 



LOST MOTION. 

A few days since we were talking with a skillful 
workman about repairing a large, valuable and com- 
plex piece of machinery. The practised eye of the 
quiet worker in iron readily discovered the causes of 
the defects of the great machine, and he expressed 
his perfect ability to remove them. Among other 
things, he said that the " lost motion must be taken 
up." 

After the business was over we fell to thinking of 
his words, and wondering if most men and women 
— like deranged machinery — did not need to have 
lost motion taken up. The young man, starting in 
life with correct habits and good resolutions, yields 
step by step to the fascinations of indulgence and 
the seductions of sin, until every one sees that his 
moral powers have lost motion, which sadly needs 
to be taken up. 

The man of middle life, whose trained and expe- 
rienced powers are left to relax in idleness, or are 
used only for trifling, selfish, or unworthy purposes, 
has lost motion, and falls fearfully short of accom- 
plishing the good which by nature he was fitted to 
do. The woman who, moving queen-like amid luxu- 
rious surroundings, or creating and sharing the com- 
forts of a modest home, permits that home to be the 
boundary of her sympathies and care, and centers 
all her thought upon her own adornment, her pleas- 
ure, or her pride, unmindful of the pleading voices 
4 



5© LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

of the poor, of the varied and innumerable forms 
which want and woe are constantly assuming, and 
which forever hem us in — she has lost motion in 
life, and, beautiful and radiant as she may be, falls 
far short of being the earthly angel which it is her 
privilege and duty to become. When we descend 
to lower grades of life, when blear-eyed vice and 
angry-visaged crime skulk in darkness, or deface the 
day, we find sights sadder still — ruins awful and 
complete. 

The paralyzed conscience, the infirm will, and the 
unfeeling heart, are all indications of lost motion 
in life. Churches and chapels, lecture rooms and 
schools are workshops to which poor humanity re- 
pairs for the betterment of its condition — the resto- 
r«ation of the motion lost. How effective these 
agencies are, how many leave the church or chapel 
with feelings freshened, with conscience quickened, 
with faith strengthened, with purpose invigorated, 
and all the beauty and power and tension of life 
restored, it is not our purpose to inquire now. 

Git And Gumption. — There are certain quali- 
ties of mind and character which, " down east," are 
described by the expressive words ^^ gW and ^'' gu7np- 
tiony " Git," we take it, means a certain irresistible 
promptness and energy ; and " gumption " a peculiar 
winning tact, something even better than industry 
and surer than genius. When "git" and "gump- 
tion " are combined the result is certain success. 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 5 1 



TO A BOY EDITOR. 

[The following is a letter written to Victor Welch, of 
Madison, Wisconsin, who, at the time the letter was written 
was under ten years of age, yet published a small paper at 
his fath'ir's residence :] 

Master Victor John Welch : 

A visit to the office of the " Home Diary," and 
the perusal of its files — a valued present from your 
father — has given me the ambition to write a letter 
for its pages, and thus join the choice circle of your 
contributors. 

A printing office in a gentleman's private residence, 
with an editor whose years are expressed by a single 
figure, is at least an anomaly; but, in future years, 
when your pleased eye shall look over the pages of 
the " Diary," you will find, that although small in di- 
mensions, in sprightliness of fancy, in incisive thought, 
in pungent criticism, it fairly rivals more ambitious 
sheets. 

The types are wonderful things, Victor, and if, in 
learning to form them into lines and marshal them 
into columns, you also learn to use that wonderful 
instrument of power, the English language, with 
ease and accuracy and vigor, you will find that your 
father has given you a better " start in life " than if 
he had endowed you with stocks and bonds, or made 
you the owner of vast estates. Your name appears 
as editor of a paper at an age when a less favored 



52 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

boy would perhaps feel the first promptings of am- 
bition to secure this distinction. In maturer years 
you will more fully appreciate this honor, and will 
perhaps translate into fact what is now a pleasing 
fiction. 

In my boyhood I often stood on the wharves of 
one of our seaboard cities and saw the great ships 
depart for far-off lands, and as they boldly stood out 
upon the waste of waters, I wondered whether the 
cruel, roaring, hungry sea would swallow them up, 
or whether, after many months, they would return, 
bringing wealth to their possessors, and happiness to 
waiting hearts. Just so, Victor, does a thoughtful 
mari regard a boy who is playing on the margin of 
that sea of life across which he must boldly steer. 

"It may be that the gulfs will wash him down, 
It may be he will reach the Happy Isles." 

None make the voyage in unbroken sunshine. 
Storms will come, my boy, but V/ill and Work are 
faithful pilots, and will bring you safely through. 

In the years of your manhood, which is to come, 
you will find that great hopes will die, great faiths 
will be wrecked, great loves will be misdirected and 
misplaced. But you will also find that man is not 
the powerless slave of nature or passion ; if he cannot 
imperatively rule, he can, at least, partially control 
them both. The sun goes down, but we light our 
lamps and make a circle of brightness in the wide- 
surrounding and close-pressing night ; and so, when 
the death of a great hope or the wrecking of a great 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 53 

faith darken's life with love's eclipse, we may yet 
make it comfortable and serene by the aid of smaller 
joys, of lesser faiths, of homely duties faithfully per- 
formed. 

It is easy to be advisory, Victor, and if this letter 
is didactic in its character, it will be but the common 
fault of men when writing to the young. 

Your parents and teachers will impress on you the 
necessity of forming correct habits, but it is desirable 
that you early appreciate the almost omnipotent 
power of a habit when once it has obtained control 
of a man. I was once riding on a train of cars over 
a long reach of level prairie. Standing on the front 
platform of the rear car, the train running as if furies 
fed its fires, I noticed with surprise that the coupling 
which joined this car to the next was slack, and the 
car itself actually pushing on those before it. Only 
at intervals would the iron links straighten and the 
car feel the force of the ponderous engine which 
drew the train. You see, Victor, the car had got a 
habit oi running — it had gathered momentum, and 
the same force which had put it in motion would have 
been powerless to arrest its course. Now, habit is 
simply momentum in a given direction of life. Its 
beginnings are slight, but its gathered, cumulative 
strength is almost beyond conception or belief. No 
rule can measure its force, no calculus determine its 
limit, no law control its power. It is a strong, impe- 
rious giant. It binds its victims with chains softer 
than silk, but stronger than steel. Impalpable, un- 
seen, its power can fitly be compared to that invisible 



54 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

law of gravitation which binds the universe of God 
together, and controls the courses of the wandering 
worlds. One may well be awed in the presence of 
such power, and if you can but feebly estimate its 
strength, you will not need be admonished to be 
careful what habits you form. 

As you grow older, Victor, you will be surprised 
at the paltry nature of the topics which engross 
many men's thoughts and fill their speech. The 
husks on which the Prodigal Son had nearly starved, 
were opulence itself compared to the mental pabulum 
on which so many fill their dwarfed, distorted minds. 
The small talk, the neighborhood gossip, the retailing 
of rumors, the rehearsal of unimportant events, the 
surmises and the speculations about other people's 
plans and purposes — these absorb the mental life of 
very many, and are at once the indication and the 
cause of barrenness of soul and poverty of mind. 
To the small things of your own life, and the lives 
of those with whom you live, give careful attention, 
for they are the friction in the machinery of life, but 
let the deluge of small talk which will surround you 
be as powerless to arrest your attention or disturb 
your repose, as the hail beating against closed blinds, 
is impotent to invade the security of the room 
within. 

Another thing you will remember, Victor, that 
character is the most valuable part of a man. It is 
richer than wealth, better than brilliancy, grander 
than intellect. It is the besetting sin of youth to 
worship mere intellectual power. You will guard 



I 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 55 

against the fascination of this fault. A firmly estab- 
lished character is the only sure base on which a 
noble superstructure can be reared. Great intel- 
lectual brilliancy or power, divorced from moral 
worth, is like a marble shaft resting on shifting sand 
— in the first tempest it will be overthrown, and lie 
soiled upon the earth above which it should rise. 
History and your own observation will teach you 
that the lives of many of the most highly gifted are 
valuable only as beacon lights to warn others of the 
ruin in which they have been engulfed. A man 
without character often achieves a seeming success, 
but his triumph is transitory. Like the ungodly man 
mentioned in Scripture, "Yet a little while and he 
shall be clean gone ; thou shalt look after his place, 
and he shall be away." A man with compelling brain, 
with generous impulse and ready sympathy, with no 
taint of meanness soiling his life, no canker of deceit 
festering in his soul, whose convictions have crys- 
tallized into character, whose frank and fearless eye 
beams a benediction on all of beauty and truth, and 
flashes scorn on all of falsehood and pretense — such 
a man is the " noblest work of God." 

That you, Victor, may become such a man, each 
day conferring blessing and enjoying content, until 
the last day shall come, and you pass to the "other 
side of life," where 

"Quiet reigns, and brings to brain and breast 
The benediction of unbroken rest," 

is the sincere wish of your friend. 



56 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

Woman's Rights. — Philosophers will some day- 
be called upon to decide why it is that the cause of 
"Woman's Rights," which drags so painfully in the 
old and thickly-settled East, has won its only signal 
victories in the West. We lack the courage, even if 
we had the ability, to offer any suggestions toward 
the solution of this question. We know, of course, 
that the Hght-minded and unreflecting would say- 
that it is because in the East the women outnumber 
the men, while in the West that position is reversed ; 
but we are too well disciplined to say anything of 
the kind — for that sort of statement implies too 
grossly that the divinest half of creation is only 
fully appreciated when it makes itself very scarce. 
The weasel shall be entrapped in deep slumber 
before our cautious pen assumes the guilt of such 
villainy ! But the fact remains, and some day it will 
puzzle the wiseacres. 

Old Letters. — Reader, have you a package of 
letters from friends carefully tied with ribbon, or 
safely laid in a private drawer. They are like a row 
of tombstones in " God's Acre," marking the place 
where friends have been laid. They are dead now. 
The soul passed out of them as you read them first, 
and when you occasionally look over them now it is 
for the same reason that you look at the picture of a 
dead friend — to call up more vividly the memories 
of the past. As the life of those letters passed into 
our own, so shall our lives one day pass into a greater 
one. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 57 

A NIGHT IN A LIGHTHOUSE. 

Years ago we were familiar with the murmuring 
of the sea, Hstened entranced to its wondrous voices, 
but it had been long since its music had been our 
lullaby and we had slept with its waters all around 
us. The sensation was almost novel and entirely 
delightful ; we could not help thinking that we had 
some connection with the great light in the tower, and 
the safety which it gave to the sailors who passed by. 
The sea has strange, multitudinous voices for those 
who have ears to hear. Sometimes it has ^ cry of 
pain, like it were a caged monster chafing at the 
bounds which confine it, and reaching out angrily to 
seize its prey ; and again its tones are soft and se- 
ductive as the voices of the fabled sirens, and its 
retreating waves woo to their embrace with no inti- 
mation that their returning grasp is relentless as 
death. Sometimes the waves will thunder in a 
grand, joyful, and triumphant chorus, as if an om- 
nipotent hand measured their flow into harmony 
with the melodies of infinite thought and the move- 
ments of limitless worlds; and again in fantastic and 
playful mood they will dance as lightly as the feet of 
Mirth, and sing as gayly as the lips of Love. 

We seemed again to hear the sea in all these 
moods, and remembering the recent great storm, 
and the evidences of it which were all around us, 
the thought of its terror clung close to us, and in 
our fancy the wrecks drifted slowly hy, 



58 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

" the gurgling cry 

Of the strong swimmer in his agony" 

fell upon our ears, and the drowned men came gliding 
in procession before us, each spectral form now rising 
on the crested wave and now dipping below it. 

The thoughts became too heavy, and with sym- 
pathy for those who mourned the desolations which 
shipwreck had made, and with thankfulness that such 
sorrows had not invaded our life, we dismissed the 
specters called up by fancy, and closing our ears to 
the ceaseless voice of many waters, we slept soundly 
in the lighthouse at Racine. 

Railroad Riding, even with pleasant compan- 
ions, is tedious, unless one thinks, or rather reveries^ 
if that word can be used as a verb. It is so natural 
for one to think that the train he is riding on is the 
important train of that day. But if he stops to 
think, he knows that all over the broad land, every 
hour of the day and night, the great trains are shoot- 
ing across States, as the shuttle shoots across the 
loom, each filled with the same eager, expectant 
throng. Each car-load is a small edition of the 
great, surging, restless world. Some gaily intent on 
pleasure ; some on errands of business and gain ; 
some with hearts breaking with sorrow, hastening to 
comfort the dying, or bury the dead ; some on mis- 
sions of mercy ; some in the service of crime ; some 
hearts bright with climbing hopes which reach the 
heavens ; some dark with despair which shudderingly 
recoils from hell. 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 59 

THE NIGHT TRAIN. 

There is something weird and almost ghostly 
about the shrieking passage of the night train over 
the long, level miles. Through the black night it 
goes, waking the stillness with its roar, and startling 
the darkness with the gleam of its rushing headlight, 
while its colored lanterns in the rear twinkle a hasty 
good-bye. It comes like a startling apparition — it 
goes like a dream of delirium, leaving one in wonder 
and amaze. 

Within the train the sight is equally suggestive. 
Here are the employes faithful at their post, and the 
conductor moves about with ever watchful eye. 
Here is weariness, languor, and unconsciousness in 
every form. The -strong man has forgotten his 
strength, and uneasily sits or lies in crumpled con- 
dition. The worn mother wearily tends her restless 
child, and snatches brief bits of sleep as the lazy 
hours creep slowly by. Here all is impatient waiting, 
discomfort and unrest ; but back in the luxurious 
sleeping-car the unconscious inmates are wrapped 
in "undisturbed repose, and unheeded by them the 
great train rushes on its way. 

By and by the morning comes. Some with light 
hearts awake to feel its brightening touch rest like a 
benediction upon them. Others awake with aching 
heads and weary frames to face again the deep dis- 
appointment and the carking cares from which sleep 



6o LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

had brought them only slight respite, and so all go 
on their several ways. 

In the great journey of life there is a night train 
also. We shall all take it sometime. It is like the 
other of which we have written, in that there will be 
careful attendants around. The conductor on this 
train is the physician, who gives to us his constant, 
watchful care, while nurses and friends watch over 
us, obeying every order — as the brakesmen watch 
and control the movements of the rapid car. Here, 
too, are some tossing in the delirium of fever, writhing 
in the gripe of unrelaxing pain — while others, blest 
with unconsciousness, speed swiftly on to the jour- 
ney's end. 

To all these, also, the morning cometh; and they 
shall wake, like those others of whom we have writ- 
ten, as the night found them — some racked with 
remorse and scarred with sin — others bright with 
the splendors of unspeakable joy. When that night 
comes to us, may our passage be peaceful, our morn- 
ing be unclouded day. 

The shining crystal snow is nothing but dark 
water purified by frost ; and so the saintly souls we 
sometimes meet are only our common human nature 
sanctified by sorrow and sweetened by faith. 

A MAN may be successful as a loafer, and invest 
less capital and brains than are required to succeed 
in any other profession. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 6i 



"POOR CARLOTTA!" 

On the 19th of June, in the city of Queretaro, in 
the fair sunlight of a beautiful day, guarded by 
legions of soldiers, and surrounded by a vast popu- 
lace, a young and gallant gentleman was shot to 
death. He was of princely lineage, and his unshrink- 
ing courage and noble mien well became his royal 
birth and blood. 

Standing there in the awful moment which was to 
divide two worlds, his thoughts were not of hopes 
ruined, of honors lost, of ambitions crushed or con- 
fidence betrayed, but of the beautiful and devoted 
wife whose gracious ways and womanly gentleness 
and resistless beauty had been the crowning glory 
of his happier life, the sweetest solace of his mis- 
fortune, who had crossed the seas in his behalf, only 
to be repulsed in despair — he thought of her, and 
his last words were "Poor Carlotta !" 

For this will Maximilian be remembered. Not 
for his royal blood, but for that touch of nature 
which makes the whole world kin. There is not in 
history any dying words of saint or hero which 
appeal more tenderly to the universal heart of man 
than these. 

We do not mourn over Maximilian's death, for 
execution for state offenses does not necessarily 
imply any stain upon personal honor. His faults 
were those of birth and inheritance. His virtues, 
his bravery, his tenderness, were of that rare and 



62 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

noble quality which forever receive the worship of 
woman and the admiration of man. 

"Poor Carlotta!" However misguided in his 
ambitions or his acts, those words, with their re- 
deeming associations, will crown him with the flowers 
of affection and the laurel of fame. This is one of 
the tragic facts of life, which eclipse all possible 
fiction. The romance of " Romeo and Juliet " does 
not equal in tearful and tender interest the story of 
Maximilian and Carlotta. 

"Poor Carlotta !" The words are historic for- 
evermore. Side by side the brave young prince and 
his beautiful wife will walk together, grandly but 
mournfully, through the pages of future history — 
through all the years of coming time. 

Minnehaha is not a "big thing," though it is one 
of the most curious and delightfully charming things 
on record. The water falls because it can't help it. 
The stream being small, and venturing to the edge 
of the precipice, of course the force of gravitation 
takes it down. It is natural, very. It flows music- 
ally along, like any other modest and merry stream, 
until, without warning of any kind, it suddenly finds 
itself on the dizzy brink, and in an even sheet about 
thirty-five or forty feet in width, it goes shivering 
and sparkling over, and shimmers and gurgles and 
gleams, and tosses out its white arms, and flings its 
silvery spray, and wreaths itself into fantastic forms, 
until, at last, having fallen, probably, about eighty 
feet, it gathers itself together and hurries away. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 6^ 



THE TYPE AND THE TYPOS. 

The two most fascinating sounds, not human, to 
which I have ever listened, are the click of the tele- 
graph and the click of the types. There is a tie of 
consanguinity between these sounds — a family rela- 
tionship of birth, and a similarity of service in the 
things themselves. Each serves the highest master 
-^-Mind; each is engaged in the noblest occupation 
— the diffusion of ideas and intelligence. 

As the music of the violin is an incentive to dancing, 
so is the music of types rapidly falling into a " stick " 
an aid to thought. Many very brilliant newspaper 
articles have been "set up" at the "case," without 
having been previously written, and ^n our experience 
we have often found that when we had an extra 
amount of writing to do, we could do it more easily 
and more rapidly to leave the carpeted sanctum and 
the cushioned chair, and sit at a bare table in the 
"composing room," where we could catch the infec- 
tion of the industry around us. 

Of the types themselves we never weary. They 
are the civilizers — a dictionary reduced to its lowest 
denomination. They look dull enough, but all the 
glorious possibilities that the human heart can hope 
for are in their possession — you have but to learn 
the secret they so closely keep. If one but knew 
how to properly pick out and arrange those little 
pieces of metal, princely fortune and immortal fame 
would be his reward. It took but a handful to make 



64 LUTE Taylor's' chip basket. 

the "Heathen Chinee," yet that handful made the 
name of Bret Harte a household word, and placed 
ducats at his disposal. There are plenty of possi- 
bilities left in them yet. There are finer strains 
there than poet has ever sung; there is keener wit, 
more tearful pathos, more persuasive prayer than 
tongue has uttered, or ear has heard. Get it out if 
you can. They are patient of delay. 

It is interesting to trace the analogy between these 
types and the mind which is their master. A locked 
"form " gives no more indication to the unpracticed 
eye of the satire that may be sparkling, or the sorrow 
that may be sobbing through it, than an impassive 
face gives of the thought which may be moving in 
the brain. And again, as the life of a man is often 
quickened, his soul strengthened, and his energy in- 
creased by stress of adverse circumstances, so it is 
only a " tight squeeze " which reveals the life within 
the types. The baptism of ink must descend upon 
them, and the strong arms of the press must embrace 
them before the life that is in them is made manifest. 

The " typos " are as interesting as the types. The 
printer has been well called "the adjutant of thought." 
He is more than a mechanic, although much of his 
labor is mechanical. The faithful, conscientious, 
pains-taking printer is deserving of an honor that he 
rarely receives. Quite often he is the superior in 
intelligence of the writer whose " copy " comes into his 
hands, and it is owing to his judgment and care that 
the writer makes so presentable an appearance in 
print. Standing silently at his case, busy with hand 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 65 

and brain, the " copy " that comes to him is a minia- 
ture panorama of the multitudinous life of the world. 
A jest, a murder, a speech, a song, a funeral, or a 
dance, each is chronicled and forgotten, just as they 
are briefly commented on and forgotten by the busy 
world outside. 

Among "typos "there is a fellowship closer than 
among any other artisans. To belong to the " craft " 
is a passport to the sympathy of all. The needy 
printer can always find a " case " which his more 
favored brother typo will relinquish to him for a 
time, or he will receive a donation by asking for it. 
No printer, whether deserving or not, goes empty- 
handed from the office where his needs are known. 
These needy printers are frequently the veriest "dead 
beats " in existence. As the faithful, careful printer 
is one of the most honorable of the great army 
which swells the ranks of labor, so the " tramp " is 
one of the most useless and degraded of loafers. In 
being this, he but obeys a general law — that law 
which makes a vile woman viler than a man can be, 
because she stoops from a higher elevation. But we 
have not time to pursue the subject. To all the 
toilers at the case we reach out a friendly hand, and 
hope that when their life " proofs " are revised by the 
Master's eye, there will be found no " outs " of virtue 
or "doublets " of vice. 

The way a man spends Sunday is a pretty good 
indication of how he will spend the remainder of 
the week. 
5 



66 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

The County Fair. — A County Fair, like death, 
or politics, is a great leveler. All meet on equal 
terms — the dapper gent and the hard-handed son 
of toil, the elegant lady and her humbler country 
cousin, the fastidious and the vulgar, the man of 
bowels and the man of brains, the white-haired and 
aged infirm and the red-cheeked, rollicking boys, all 
meet on a level and wonder at the pumpkins and 
admire the pictures; praise the address of the 
speaker and the trappings of the fancy team; are 
delighted with the music of the band, and eloquent 
over the enormous proportions of a yearling calf; 
applaud the graceful carriage of the lady equestrian, 
and linger admiringly around the pen of a beautiful 
Suffolk shoat, now talk interjections, with wondrous 
exclamation points between, as they examine a deli- 
cate sample of embroidery, and then almost affec- 
tionately caress a huge melon, a blood beet, or a jar 
of plum jam. And then when the fair is over, and 
the roads leading countryward are filled with return- 
ing teams, each load throws out talk as a fountain 
jets out spray, and for a day or two following the 
whole country is sown thick with gossip growing out 
of incidents connected with The Fair. 

A Trout is an embodied poem — the expression 
of God's finest thought of beauty of form, grace of 
motion and elegance of attire. 

Progress moves forward by two springs — men 
and events. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 67 



WINTER. 

Winter is an institution — especially in this north- 
ern climate. It comes late in the fall, and stays till 
the weather is so warm it can't very well stay any 
longer. This year it has come like an attack of the 
rheumatics, or a caller before breakfast — mighty 
sudden and unexpected. The smile of the Indian 
Summer had scarcely faded from the hillsides, when 
the surly wintry wind came blustering over them, 
and made the bare treetops creak with pain, and 
dashed a snow-shower all over the garments of re- 
treating autumn. It was no sportive frolic of the 
elements, but a genuine blast from the Winter King 
— "a nipping and an eager air" that stung the 
mouth which breathed it ; while the mercury, which 
for months had been reposing at figures of comfort- 
able elevation, suddenly betook itself to the base- 
ment of its tubular tenement, and ran down to an 
alarmingly low figure below nothing. 

And now, my friend who holds this paper, (you 
are not in much of a hurry, are you ?) supposing we 
have a little talk about winter. Cold is a very solemn 
thing. It is cruel, remorseless — there is death in 
its touch. We have got to battle for life till summer 
suns shine on us again. Did you ever think of it — 
that this Jack Frost, who paints your windows with 
such delicate tracery, who clothes the whole land- 
scape with jewelry which gleams and flashes in the 
morning sun — that this same sparkling fellow is 



6S LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

more cruel and unrelenting, more pitiless than any 
ghoul or demon, or giant Bluebeard who affrighted 
your infancy ? Perhaps you are a mother, holding 
your little babe full of rich and vigorous life. Divest 
it of its warm garments and place it under the clear 
sky of this beautiful night, and Jack Frost will sting 
it with icy pains till the soul is tortured out of the 
body and the warm child is frozen clay. And then, 
who knows but the wintry forces may increase, and the 
air become so full of frost that to breathe it shall be 
death, and furs and fires shall be of no avail, and we 
all be frozen stiff and stark, standing in the streets — 
sitting in the houses — motionless, dead ; who knows ? 
Winter, too, takes away many of our pleasures. 
We will instance but one — the pleasure of going to 
bed when weary and rising when refreshed. A con- 
templative and philosophical mind can find but few 
pleasures equal to that of going to bed in the summer 
season. What a kindness in the touch of the de- 
licious evening air ! What a sense of roominess in 
the spacious bed ! What a glorious chance for the 
legs to push round and get acquainted with each 
other ! In the daytime a fellow's legs, cased up in cloth 
and boot-tops, are kept in perfect isolation and know 
scarcely anything of each other; but at night they are 
introduced to each other, and learn that they are 
fellow-pilgrims, traveling through Ufe together. And 
in the morning what a luxury to get up ! You can 
dress at your ease, and bathe if you wish, with no 
disagreeable chills running over you, but a sweet 
sense of secure and untroubled comfort. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 69 

But in the winter — ugh ! You hang around the 
stove long after you ought to go to bed, and finally 
start off feeling that you have a disagreeable duty to 
perform. You undress with frantic energy — a shud- 
der — a desperate plunge — a spasm — a series of 
smaller convulsions — and you go to sleep just to 
dodge a feeling of discomfort. In the morning it is 
the same struggle over again. The thought of getting 
up brings a contortion to your face, and when im- 
pelled to it by necessity, or the thought of coffee for 
breakfast, you push yourself out with a sullen des- 
peration, draw on a few indispensable articles, and 
rush for the nearest stove in indecent haste and in 
almost immodest attire. 

For an unseen, impalpable thing, cold is about as 
certain a reality as there is in existence. It coffins 
up the lively streams, chills the bosom of the blos- 
soming earth, and raises the price of cord wood. It 
puts a glow of health, a flush of beauty and rushing 
blood, upon the cheek of the delicate maiden wrap- 
ped in furs ; and a look that is almost like agony— 
a wan, thin, pinched, despairing look — upon the 
faces of the shivering, tattered, and comfortless poor. 
No art can elude this keen searcher. It nestles 
in the corners, of the cheeriest room, as twilight lin- 
gers all the summer day in the thick boughs of a 
dark old pine. The roaring fire drives it back for a 
time, but, let the glow subside, and it comes back 
and chills to death the very embers. It pinches 
everybody's ears — nestles in the daintiest slipper, 
and crawls into the stoutest boot. No mortal power 



70 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

can vanquish it, and only when the vast forces of 
Nature give it battle, and the summer suns pour on 
the world their flood of warmth, does it relinquish 
its grasp ; and then it is not conquered, only baffled, 
and retreats to its strongholds in the icy North, leav- 
ing pickets in shady and sequestered places, and soon 
sweeps down on us again, impalpable as a thought, 
and dowered with a strength of which thought can- 
not conceive. 

Yet let us not be too hard upon this rough old 
winter. His hoary locks and glistening beard entitle 
him to a thought of kindness yet. Nature is full of 
wise and beneficent compensations, and winter gives 
us much for what is taken away. The long, quiet, 
cozy evenings, when the fire burns brightly, and the 
shadows dance upon the wall, and the fresh papers 
are on the table, and the leaves of the new book or 
magazine are waiting to be cut, and the sense of 
discomfort without gives added blessing to the sense 
of security within — what hours are these for thought, 
for reading, for happy social converse ! How the 
heart grows, and is filled with a kinder love and a 
holier humanity! With what resistless eloquence 
come the pleading voices of the suffering poor, the 
sorrow-stricken, the unfortunate ! 

There is a thread in our thought as there is 
a pulse in our heart; he who can hold the one 
knows how to think; and he who can move the 
other, knows how to feel. 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 7 1 

DEATH OF WEDDED LOVE. 

We have all seen the trees die in the summer time. 
But the tree, with its whispering leaves and swinging 
limbs, its greenness, its umbrage, where shadows lie 
hidden all the day, does not die all at once. First a 
dimness creeps over its brightness, next a leaf here 
and there sickens and pales, then a whole bough 
feels the palseying touch of coming death, and finally 
the feeble signs of sickly life, visible here and there, 
all disappear, and the dead trunk holds out its strip- 
ped, stark limbs, a melancholy ruin. Just so does 
wedded love sometimes die. Wedded love, girdled 
by the blessing of friends, hallowed by the sanction 
of God, rosy with present joys, and radiant with 
future hopes — it dies not all at once. A hasty word 
casts a shadow upon it, and the shadow darkens with 
the sharp reply. A little thoughtlessness miscon- 
strued, a little unintentional neglect deemed real, a 
little word misinterpreted — through such small ave- 
nues the devil of discord gains admittance to the 
heart, and then welcomes in all his infernal progeny. 

The presence of something malicious is felt, but 
not acknowledged ; love becomes reticent, confidence 
is chilled, and noiselessly but surely the work of sepa- 
ration goes on, until the twain are left as isolated as 
the pyramids — nothing left of the union but its 
legal form — the dead trunk of the tree whose 
branches once tossed in the bright sunlight, and 
whose sheltering leaves trembled with the music of 
singing birds. 



72 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

A Good "Tavern," — The tavern itself is a 

'big thing." Whether viewed from the office, bar, 
billiard-room, parlors, dining-hall or chambers, it is 
somewhat stupendous. The ceilings are lofty — 
likewise the bill for a week's board, extras included. 
As a candidate for the nomination for circuit judge 
of this district once said of the City Hotel at Hud- 
son, "the rooms are carpeted, and you don't have to 
come down stairs to wash." 

A daily paper is published by the -^ — , called the 
"Bill of Fare." There are two editions — morning 
and noon. It is furnished to guests gratuitously, 
and is distributed by newsboys — who are girls 
mainly. Many choice selections are made from this 
paper. Much more might be said in praise of this 
tavern, but time faileth us. It is an excellent place 
to be in. 

Books. — A good book is the most appropriate 
gift that friendship can make. It never changes, it 
never grows unfashionable or old. It is soured by 
no neglect, is jealous of no rival, but always its clean, 
clear pages are ready to amuse, interest or instruct. 
The voice that speaks the thought may change or 
grow still forever, the heart that prompted the kindly 
and cheering word may grow cold and forgetful, but 
the page that mirrors it is changeless, faithful, im- 
mortal. The Book that records the incarnation of 
Divine Love is God's best gift to man, and the books 
which are filled with kindly thought and generous 
sympathy are the best gifts of friend to friend. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 73 



THE NEW YEAR. 

Many of our readers are the same to" whom we 
have sent greeting so many times before. Many 
of those early readers are now past all earthly hear- 
ing, and the same types which conveyed them 
greeting have recorded their departure. 

Could we but write their real lives to-day — the 
history of their hearts — could we but catch and 
imprison in words the impalpable life of the soul — 
the happy fancies and the delicious dreams which 
tantalized them with the vague hope of something 
better than they had known, remote but longed 
for possibilities which drift through the dreaming 
thought as fleecy cloudlets drift through the far-off 
summer heaven; or could we picture the sorrow, 
the regret, the disappointment, the unrest that em- 
bitter life, or the black remorse that darkens it like 
a dream of hell ; could we but thus picture even 
the commonest life, the passion of romance would 
pale in the presence of the more passionate reality. 
But the journalist deals only with outward facts and 
symbols, and real life remains unwritten and gene- 
rally unknown. 

The thought that some of those around us who 
now look out upon this glorious earth, and drink in 
its life-giving airs, and feed upon its beauty, will, 
on another New Year, lie buried in its bosom, is a 
natural thought. It intrudes itself upon us, and will 
not be put away, for it is true. The richness and 



74 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

fullness of life as surely suggest the coming stillness 
and darkness, as the shadows are sure to nestle 
among the leaves in the rich heart of the summer 
day. The' spectre confronts us not alone in the 
closet, but he walks beside us in the brightest day, 
and intrudes upon our happiest momenta. 

Genius and Poverty. — It is one of the myste- 
ries of our life that genius, that noblest gift of God 
to man is nourished by poverty. Its greatest works 
have been achieved by the sorrowing ones of the 
world in tears and despair. Not in the brilliant 
saloon, furnished with every comfort and elegance ; 
not in the library, well fitted, softly carpeted, and 
looking out upon a smooth green lawn, or a broad 
expanse of scenery; not in ease and competence, is 
genius born and nurtured — but more frequently in 
adversity and destitution, amidst the harassing cares 
of a straitened household, in bare and fireless gar- 
rets, with the noise of squalid children, in the midst 
of the turbulence of domestic contentions, and in 
the deep gloom of uncheered despair, is genius 
born and reared. This is its birthplace, and in 
scenes like these, unpropitious, repulsive, wretched, 
have men labored, studied and trained themselves, 
until they have at last emanated out of the gloom 
of that obscurity the shining Hghts of their times — 
become the companions of kings, the guides and 
teachers of their kind — and exercised an influence 
upon the thought of the world amounting to a spe- 
cies of intellectual legislation. 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 75 



GETTING WELL. 

Sickness brings a share of blessing with it. What 
stores of human love and sympathy it reveals. What 
constant affectionate care is ours. What kindly 
greetings from friends and associates. This very 
loosening of our hold on life calls out such wealth 
of human sympathy, that life seems richer than be- 
fore. Then it teaches us humility. Our absence is 
scarcely noticed or felt. From the noisy, wrestling 
world without, we are separated as completely as if 
the moss were on our tombstones, yet our place is 
filled, and all moves on without us ; so we learn 
that when at last we shall sink forever beneath the 
waves of the sea of life, there will be but a ripple, 
and the current will move steadily on. On a sick- 
bed the sober truth comes home with startling 
emphasis, that 

"The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
Plod on, and each one as before will chase 
His favorite phantom. " 

But we Started to write about getting well. There 
is a luxury in getting well that cannot be told. To 
feel that the links binding you to life are surely 
strengthening ; to be a little stronger in the feet ; to 
take the first unassisted step ; to be an hour longer 
from the pillow ; to sit once more with the family 
circle; to venture into the open air and feel the 



76 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

better for it — yet all the while to be a little tremu- 
lous with fear : this is getting well. It is to the 
frame something as spring is to reviving nature — 
when we -are not quite sure it has done snowing; 
not sure but a narrow breadth of winter — a " re- 
lapse," you know — lies between us and the full 
blossoming violet and snowdrop. One feels a new 
life tingling in his veins, and it seems as if this 
wondrous machinery of his was just set in motion. 
The faces of acquaintances, too, wear a strange 
look, and only by degrees do they grow familiar. 

But a weakness in the arm, a trembling of the 
hand, and a dizziness of the brain, warn us to close 
this article, lest the fatigue of writing interfere with 
our own — getting well. 

The Toilet of Death. — The love of dress is 
instinctive. With the child it is a passion, with the 
woman a pleasure, with the man a manly pride. It 
is necessary and right to give due attention to our 
apparel, and bestow befitting care upon our personal 
appearance. 

But the time will come when we shall not make 
our own choice of clothing — our own hands will not 
arrange it, nor our eyes take note of its appearance. 
The child will take no delight in the beauty which 
adorns the body; the woman will not perceive the 
texture, color, or arrangement of her garments, and 
the man's closed eyes will take no heed of his comely 
apparel. It is when the toilet of death shall be made. 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 77 

ROBERT BURNS. 

Probably around no other name, not divine, has 
poesy twined so many wreaths; over no other has 
oratory pronounced so many and so graceful eulo- 
gies; about no other does love cling with such 
tenacious hold, as about and around the name of 
Robert Burns. Scotland was his birthplace, but the 
heart of the world is his home. 

If one wants to know how royal is song — how 
every gift and power dwarfs in its kingly presence, 
let him ken Robert Burns. He has lifted a pro- 
vincial dialect into universal knowledge and inter- 
pretation. He has made the wild Scottish heather 
a house-plant, blooming by every fireside where 
literature finds welcome or love itself a home. Who 
knows who was king when Robert Burns was an 
exciseman.? Who knows who were the lords, and 
the chancellors, and the generals, and the admirals, 
when he was treading in the furrow of his plow and 
watching the daisy curl beneath it.? Who knows 
of their birthdays.? Who forgets his.? What he 
touched, of his age, will be immortal. Tarn O'Shan- 
ter's hold on remembrance is as secure as Caesar's 
or Napoleon's. " Highland Mary " will be enshrined 
forever in the world's heart as the true ideal of a 
maiden — gentle, loving and pure, — as sweetly, but 
less sadly, than Ophelia, she will glide through all 
the centuries to come — a vision of beauty, grace 
and love. 



78 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

Burns, the smart plowman from Ayreshire, the 
rhymster, who excited after a while the mild curi- 
osity of the liter ateurs of his time, dined one day, by 
sort of special favor, at- Lord Munboddo's, with Dr. 
Blair, Dugald Stewart, Henry McKenzie and the 
rest. They came into the presence of the wonder- 
ful rustic thoughtlessly enough, and now they cannot 
return if they would. They are defrauded of obliv- 
ion, and must forever attend him as satellites the 
sun, or courtiers the king. 

His very follies endear him to us, for we know how 
sincerely, sorrowfully repentant he was. He does 
not shine upon us with spotless splendor, in awful 
isolation, but walks our daily ways, shares our com- 
mon thoughts, enters our open homes, loves, hopes, 
prays, sins and suffers like us all. If his follies were 
conspicuous, his nature was large. Small souls need 
small restraints. A m.an may carry a few drops of 
water in a pint cup on a smooth path safely, but 
to bear a brimming bucket over mountain ways, 
through storm and night, and never spill one drop, 
is what no man, not even Burns, could do. From 
his life, as well as from his lines, we learn the great 
lesson that 

" We partly may compute wliat's done. 
But know not wliat's resisted." 

All over the world his birthdays are celebrated, 
and his name kept in loving remembrance, but no 
florid eulogy or stately verse will pay him a finer 
tribute or more truthfully delineate his crowning 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 79 

excellency, than Alice Gary has done years ago, in 
words simple as his own : 

" A lover of the beautiful. 

In Nature's sweet evangels ; 
For his great heart was worshipful 
For men, and maids, and angels.*' 

There are trees, like the butternut, which impov- 
erish the ground upon which they grow, but the 
olive tree enriches the very soil upon which it feeds. 
So there are natures as unlike in eifect as these — 
some cold, selfish and absorbing, which chill and 
impoverish every one with whom they come in con- 
tact. Others, radiant, affluent souls, who enrich life 
by their very presence, whose smiles are full of bless- 
ing, and whose touch has balm and healing in it, like 
the touch of Him of Nazareth. Squalid poverty is 
not so pitiable and barren as the selfish heart, while 
wealth has no largess like that with which God dowers 
the broad and sunny soul. Be like the olive from 
whose kindly boughs blessing and benison descends. 

To-day there is no scholastic seclusion so pro- 
found that the allied voice and action of this mighty 
living age may not perpetually penetrate it. To-day 
the workshop has become clairvoyant. The plow 
and the loom are in magnetic communication with 
the loftiest social centres. The last results of the 
most exquisite culture of the world in all its depart- 
ments, are within reach of the lowest haunt, where 
latent genius and refinement await their summons. 



So LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

Influence is to man what flavor is to fruit, or 
fragrance to a flower. It does not develop strength 
or determine character, but it is the measure of his 
interior richness and worth, and as the blossom can- 
not tell what becomes of the odor which is wafted 
away from it by every wind, so no man knows the 
limit of that influence which constantly and imper- 
ceptibly escapes from his daily life, and goes out far 
beyond his conscious knowledge or remotest thought. 
There are noxious weeds and fragrance-laden flowers 
in the world of mind as in that of matter. Truly 
blessed are they who walk the way of life as the 
Saviour of mankind once walked our earth, filling 
all the airs about them with the aroma which is so 
subtilly distilled from kindly deeds, helpful words 
and unselfish lives. 

Enjoying Religion. — We are tired of hearing 
people tell about enjoying religion, or mourning be- 
cause they do not enjoy religion. Religion was not 
intended to be enjoyed. Theoretically, it is abstract 
truth, like Euclid's propositions; practically, it is 
merely correct living. The object of religion is not 
to be enjoyed, but to enable people to enjoy life, and 
arm them with faith to meet that which lies beyond. 
It is a means, not an end ; and people who are long- 
ing after enjoyment of religion are very apt to divorce 
it from its proper influence in mellowing the asperities 
of life, and prompting to kindness, charity and love. 

Nature is a creditor who accepts no protest. 



i 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 8i 

VENTRILOQUISM. 

[A local notice from the Prescott "Journal" in 1867.] 

Professor Sands gave semi-scientific, magical and 
diabolical entertainments here on Tuesday and 
Wednesday evenings last. He had full audiences, 
and entertained them well. Some of his tricks were 
performed with a skill we never saw equaled. But 
the sharpest and best trick he performed was in 
inducing nineteen or twenty-three fools, one of whom 
was us, to pay one dollar each to learn how to per- 
form ten tricks of magic and ventriloquism. We 
learned them ; oh, yes. They were easy, and when 
we had learned how, we could perform them so 
easy — just as easy as a boy who has taken one 
lesson on a violin can play like Ole Bull, or a girl, 
after her first dancing lesson, move like Fanny 
Elsler. 

But we learned ventriloquism good. It some- 
times troubling us to talk where we are, we wanted 
to know how to talk where we ain't. We can do it. 
We can " throw our voice " muchly. We have tried 
it thusly : We are the proprietor of a bovine cow. 
She don't seem to know her master's crib as well as 
the Biblical ass did his. She isn't disposed to be 
regular to her meals and milking. This eccentricity 
was sometimes annoying. It is so no more. We 
step to the door and ventriloquise her. We throw 
our voice a mile or so to her favorite haunts and 
6 



82 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

win her home. We would not take ten cents for 
this useful and wonderful power of ventriloquism. 
We will impart it to our friends for a reasonable 
remuneration. We like Professor Sands, and hope 
he will rent a house and come here to live. 

The practice of asceticism in religious matters is, 
happily, fast passing away. The dogma — so com- 
monly accepted even a few years ago — that self- 
denial is a thing commendable in itself and for its 
own sake ; that the mere fact that an emotion or a 
practice is pleasing, affords sufficient proof that it is 
sinful and should be repressed, is one of the few 
remaining shreds of the now tattered robe in which 
superstition once clothed the radiant form of religion 
itself. We cannot inject virtue into the soul by 
drawing the blood from the veins. It is from the 
regulation of desire, not from its crucifixion, that 
virtue grows strong ; and warm-blooded, large- 
hearted, strong-passioned men and women, who 
guide aright the current of their lives, but do not 
check its strong impetuous flow, are fitter creatures 
for the uses of life and the service of God, than the 
pale, passionless human plants out of whom a too 
rigid discipline has crushed the bloom of earth 
without infusing the hues of heaven. 

There are men so penurious that if an angel 
should visit them and stay to dinner, the cost of the 
meal would detract from the warmth of the welcome. 



1 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 8;^ 



A FAMILIAR EPISTLE. 

Now, Joe, I am taking it easy in shirt sleeves and 
slippers, with a cozy fire and a few capital cigars, 
and this letter will be a sort of random, helter-skelter 
concern, written a good deal as a pig makes a forced 
journey — in all directions — and so I direct it to you 
individually, that its semi-personal character may 
nick off the wire-edge of any unkindly criticism. 

You are indebted for this epistle, dear Joe, to a 
tremendous snow-storm which has been howling 
around here until it is liable to indictment as a pub- 
lic nuisance. And I may as well remark that during 
my stay in this State snow-storms have been disgust- 
ingly common. There is an old saying that snow is 
the poor man's fertilizer— at least that is what it 
means, though the word used in the proverb is sug- 
gestive of a ranker odor and a more filthy appear- 
ance than we ascribe to the cleanly snow. Admitting 
the proverb to be true, it grieves me to think how 
much of this fertilizer has been wasted here this 
season. Millions of bushels have drifted away into 
uncultured places, simply because the farmers were 
too shiftless to build fences high enough to contain it. 

[Note. — Will professed agriculturists please call 
attention to this fearful waste of a productive agency.?] 

Did you ever think, my dear Joe, what a powerful 
thing this snow is.? You see the broad, feathery 
flakes, pure, soft and yielding, falling silently and 
slowly, touching the earth as tenderly and lovingly 



84 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

as a mother kisses her child, and it seems a type of 
harmless purity. But by-and-by the snow-clouds 
thicken and darken, the cold hardens the feathery 
flakes into biting crystals, and the wind moans and 
shrieks and roars like some fabled demon in an agony 
of torture, while hour after hour the snow-shower falls 
in a blinding tempest, and every living thing seeks 
shelter from the fury of its rage. And when the storm 
is over, there it lies, massed into vast drifts against 
which horses rear and plunge in vain, and the hiss- 
ing locomotive, with its fiery strength, reaches into 
it to retreat, baflled, beaten — and, not to put too 
fine a point upon it, these huge snow-drifts keep 
cattle away from drink, boys and girls away from 
school, and men and women away from the neigh- 
bors, church, store and post-office. 

[Note. — Right here, Joe, Lmay as well note the 
fact that the most harmless appearing things have 
the largest share of latent power and fury in them. 
The fleecy cloud in the summer heaven looks so far 
off, intangible and pure, that we might fancy it the 
mere exhalation of a passing angel, but the lightning, 
which touches but to wither, lies in its bosom. It is 
not the man "bearded like a pard," rough and blus- 
tering, whom it is dangerous to offend, but the quiet 
fellow who utters no threat, gives no premonition of 
anger, except the changing light in the eye, where 
fixed resolve is burning. And then we all know, 
either by observation or testimony, that the mildest- 
mannered, purring, pussy-cat kind of women are the 
most fearful when on the "rampage."] 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 85 

But, to come back to the railway train : what a 
thing of mystery and beauty and power is the engine 
itself — I mean one of those ponderous, royal fel- 
lows, whose driving wheels move with consciousness 
of almost limitless power, and the arm which connects 
them plays as if it felt omnipotence was in its stroke. 
It is more marvelous than the human brain in one 
respect, for labor does not wear away its vital force. 
The play of those steel arms is tireless, and its on- 
ward rush never falters from fatigue. And then, 
how kind and tractable a monster it is ! At the will 
of its master, it will repose in perfect quiet while the 
gentle lady alights from the car, and then, at a touch 
or too, it flames and shrieks, and rushes over dizzy 
heights and through gaping gorges as if hell was in 
its heart, and it was fleeing from mad avengers. Did 
you ever think, Joe, while riding in a rail-car, that 
you were as much at the mercy of the engineer as if 
he held a loaded rifle to your breast.? Let him 
but touch here and there, and your trip would be a 
" through " one, for you would fly past the station 
where death stands ever, passing from one world to 
another. I sometimes compare an engine to the 
human brain. The working of a large brain, guided 
by wisdom and principle, is beneficent, like the 
power of a locomotive, when rightly controlled ; but 
an essentially bad man with brain power is as dan- 
gerous as an engine fired and running with no direct- 
ing hand. 

By the way, Joe, I think it is not long since you 
were back from the State of your adoption to the 



S6 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

State of your nativity, as I now am. How much 
seems strange, Joe, dwindled, as if we were viewing 
things through the small end of a telescope. The 
old stone schoolhouse, where I learned to " speak," 
and " compose," seems to have " run into the ground " 
several feet. The church, with which is connected 
my earliest remembrance of sermons and sabbath- 
schools, and which seemed so vast an edifice to my 
wondering youth, is now a very modest-sized and 
rather mean-looking building, while the steeple, which 
rose to so dizzy a height, is not now so lofty by far, and 
it is leaning sadly askew, as if the devil were tugging 
to pull it down, that it might no longer point the 
way to heaven. And then those distances across 
the flats, from house to house, or hill to hill — is it 
the longer reaches we have traveled over since 
which makes seem so short now what was such a 
weary length in the years agone.? And when we 
meet local great men, whose riches or beetling brows 
awed our boyhood, how we find our wonder and tim- 
idity gone. How ol^ it makes one feel to ferret out 
his quo7idam schoolmates, and find them filling re- 
sponsible stations, grappling with life's earnest work, 
and see lovely women who have gone into life-com- 
panionship with them, and find the little diamond 
types of humanity — 

" Feeble promises of future men" — 

lying around loose most an)rwhere. But there is 
another thing, dear Joe, which makes your corre- 
spondent feel older than all this — it is to meet some 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 87 

one whom you remember as a pretty little girl in 
pantalets and short dresses, to whom you used to 
give candy and primers when you were a young 
man, and be introduced to her, and be received with 
an easy lady-like grace, and find yourself in the pres- 
ence of beauty and culture, quoting Tennyson, and 
talking about "Great Expectations," and you invite 
her to a ride, a concert or a party. Ah ! Joe, this 
makes one feel very old indeed — he looks for gray 
hairs, and wonders if he is not becoming venerable. 

But, Joe, let us change the subject before it gets 
too solemn. 

This being the 4th of March, I am reminded that 
for just one year Mr. Lincoln has been President of 
the Un-tied States. Let us hope that before the next 
anniversary of his inauguration, we may transfer the 
letters to their original place, and call him President 
of the United States. 

You may have heard of an affair down in Ten- 
nessee, where a movement was set on Foote which 
resulted in giving an extensive land Grant to the 
rebels in the vicinity of Fort Donelson. There was 
Western blood and brain and muscle there, Joe. You 
have read, perhaps, of the rejoicings with which the 
news was received — the shouting, the display of 
banners, and the thunder of the guns. Somehow, 
Joe, I could not halloo much. I kept thinking of 
the thousands of poor fellows who were lying stark 
and stiff — severed by canon ball, riddled by rifle 
shot, torn by bursting shell, and trampled under foot 
in the deadly charge. Lying there, grimmed with 



8S LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

powder and besmeared with blood, their ears are 
forever deaf to the exulting shout of victory. Of 
course the cause is worth the sacrifice, but I can re- 
joice better by-and-by, when the wounded have 
recovered, and time has partially soothed the sorrow 
for the dead. You have read, Joe, of that company 
which went into battle nearly a hundred strong, out 
of which but seven came back unscathed. No doubt 
they were mainly good fellows — generous, hopeful, 
strong — loving life as you and I do, and they had 
mothers, wives, sisters, and many, perhaps, 

"A nearer one 
Still, and a dearer one 
Yet, than all other. " 

And they shall welcome their coming no more ! How 
will the days seem darkened to them, and life be 
burdened with the weight of an almost crushing sor- 
row ! It is easy for us, safe at home, to talk of duty 
and honor and glory and liberty and law and the 
flag, and its being "sweet to die for one's country;" 
but still the shock of battle may well blanch the 
cheek and sadden the heart of the thinking and 
compassionate. The hearts which bleed are not 
those alone which are pierced by remorseless bay- 
onet or murderous ball. They are scattered in 
humble homes all over a continent, and the wound 
is no less painful because unseen. 

No MAN ever professed to contemn women until 
he was conscious of their contempt. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 89 



RELIGIOUS PROFESSORS. 

There have been several instances, recently, in 
which clergymen deflected from the strict line of 
manly and ministerial propriety, and each instance 
has been^ seized upon by the rapacious reporters of 
sensation sheets, and magnified into an importance 
totally disproportionate to the oflense. We do not 
so much care for this as for the covert sneers at 
religion itself which are introduced into these arti- 
cles — the inference drawn that because of these 
transgressions the Christian religion is impotent and 
powerless to restrain the passions and purify the life. 

This habit of judging a cause by the exceptional 
case of one of its professed followers is not confined 
to reporters alone, but it is unjust, illogical and ab- 
surd. It is also true that people generally expect 
too great results to follow from a public profession 
of a Christian faith and practice. They demand of 
every "member of the church " a uniform piety and 
an equally blameless life. Now, in the nature of 
things, this expectation cannot be realized. Religion 
is simply a certain power — a moral force — and its 
effect upon any person is limited, and determined to 
a great extent by the character of the person upon 
whom it acts. To the man or woman of genial and 
sunny spirit, of frank and generous and noble nature, 
religion adds a grace almost divine in its unmatched 
beauty; but upon the man or woman with a natu- 
rally sour and cynical disposition, with coarse, un- 



90 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

comfortable manners and perverted instincts, the 
same power of religion acts only as a restraint — 
mitigating what else were altogether unlovely into a 
condition of comparative tolerableness. If you apply 
an equal amount of sugar to a dish of strawberries 
and a plate of salad, the taste of the two will not be 
similar, and so the same influence of the Christian re- 
ligion applied to totally dissimilar characters cannot 
produce similar results. If one is not a professing 
Christian, let him at least be reasonable in his criti- 
cisms of those who are. 

Our lives are complex. Cooperation is the neces- 
sity of our being. It is the first lesson taught us — 
for no person was ever born without the presence 
and cooperation of another person of maturer 
years — and in the important and intensely personal 
matter of marriage, the cooperation and consent of 
another person of the opposite sex is absolutely 
essential. The thread of life, even with the most 
self-reliant, is not a single, separate strand, but it is 
twined and interwoven with many others. Number- 
less and unknown hands are laboring to supply our 
wants or minister to our pleasures. The Celestials 
pick the tea whose fragrance we sip, and laughing 
girls beyond the sea gather the grapes whose rich 
blood shall sparkle in the light of our homes. Not 
till we reach the close of life shall we be beyond the 
need, as beyond the reach, of human sympathy and 
aid. In that supreme, momentous moment, we are 
— for the first time in our existence — alone. 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 91 



DEC. 2, 1859. 

[The following lines were written the day John Brown was hung, 
Dec. a, 1859.] 

There's a sadness stealing o'er us, there's a hush in all the 

air ; 
There are eyes grown red with weeping, there are strong 

hearts bowed in prayer ; 
And the patriot's cheek is burning with the crimson blush 

of shame, 
While the whole broad land is thrilling to the mention of 

ONE NAME. 



Old John Brown swings from the gallows — so Christ hung 

upon the tree — 
Freedom's noblest son is strangled in the proud " land of the 

free," 
But the cross is shrined in holy hearts and worshiped by the 

good ; 
So the gibbet shall be glorious with sacrificial blood. 

O brothers! are we dying? Have our souls put out their 

fires? 
Have we hearts of men within us ? Have we Freedom's large 

desires ? 
Shall we sneak into our closets, and mumble out our prayers. 
While a hero's dying gasp is burdening all the airs? 

Dare we stand in glorious sunlight, and look up to God's pure 

heaven. 
And no stern, indignant protest from our deepest souls be 

given? 



92 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

Let us wake from idle dreaming — wake from all unworthy 

care! 
Fill our hearts with manly purpose — match our action to our 

prayer ! 

Let us think of John Brown's swinging from the gallows into 

heaven ; 
Till a portion of his manhood to our puny souls be given — 
Till the holy fires of liberty our frigid hearts shall swell — 
Till we hate this damned oppression with the bitter hate of 

hell. 

But a glorious morn shall break upon the night x)f our de- 
spair ; 
Justice will not sleep forever, nor Gcd be deaf to prayer ; 
Angels rolled away the stone where Christ glorified did lay. 
And the sepulchre of slavery shall be luminous with day. 

And when dawns that glorious future, and we've wiped away 

our shame, 
John Brown, despite his errors, shall wear an honored name ; 
And eloquence shall warm its speech, and poesies shall play 
Round the soldier-guarded gibbet, where the old man dies 

to-day. 



AN IDEAL POEM. 

A poem should be round and perfect as a star, 

And full of beauty, with truth beaming ; 
No vicious thought or ugly phrase should mar — 

But, like spring flowers in meadows gleaming, 
It should shine out in brightness and in splendor. 

And be as holy, pure and fair. 
As full of light and love, and tender 

As a fair girl's eyes, or a saint's sweet prayer. 



A 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 93 

CHICAGO. 

[Extracts from a letter to the St. Paul " Pioneer."] 

I like Chicago. Chicago is a large city. I have 
noticed there are always many people in a large city. 
A city don't do well without them. Some of your 
readers may not have been to Chicago. Shall I tell 
them about it ? 

There are many groceries here, where they sell 
tea, codfish, whisky, flour, molasses, saleratus and 
such things, and other groceries where they sell 
cloth, women's clothes, and fancy feminine "fixins" 
generally. Field, Leiter & Co. have of the latter. 
It is in cube form — a block long, a block high, and 
a block thick. It is bigger than a barn, and tall as 
a light-house. There are more than forty clerks in 
it — some of the male persuasion, and some of the 
female sex — and every one of them is as slick as a 
spit-curl on the side of a school-marm's face. 

There ard shows here — theatres, where girls, with- 
out very much clothes on, will whirl around till a 
fellow is dizzy looking at them ; and then stand on 
one leg, like a hen. Then all the fellows clap their 
hands, and the girl, she does the same thing again. 
It is fun ; but I don't think I would like to marry 
one of them girls that jumps about as handy as a 
flea, would you, Mr. Editor.? I don't think they 
would be real careful mothers-in-law, do you ? Miss 
Olive Logan insinuates, you know, that — well — that 



94 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

they, that is, some of them, might be mothers out of 
law, but this may be because she couldn't get used 
to standing on one toe as long as they do. Jealousy 
prompts cruel words sometimes. Then there is a 
good show — Wood's museum — where there are 
birds, monkeys, wax-works and the moral drama. 
There is to be seen the dead skeleton of a big snake 
that aint alive now. The snake is a whopper, or 
was when he was on earth. It takes two to look 
him all over, one to begin at each end and look till 
they meet. He is as long as a board fence. A crow- 
bar would be just a fair sized tooth-pick for him, 
and he could put you in his ear and not feel it, I 
am glad he is dead. 

There are lots of ships here, and horse-cars, but 
the horses don't ride on them, though, and the 
water-works. I must tell you about the water-works. 
They are a big thing. Much water is used in Chi- 
cago. Fastidious people sometimes wash in it. 
Chicago has first-class water now, and plenty of it. 
She has built a tunnel two miles long, and tapped 
Lake Michigan that distance from the shore. The 
water runs down to the home station, and is then 
lifted up high by steam-engines and distributed over 
the city. The hoisting of it up is a good deal like 
work. There are three steam-engines, of 400,000 
horse-power each, used in pumping up the water, 
and they are now preparing to put in a new large 
one. I like to see those engines work. Anybody 
would. Clean, polished, shining monsters, they seem 
to take a conscious pride in their performance, and 



LUTE TAYLOR'S CHIP BASKET. 95 

the tireless movement of their mighty arms seems 
almost as resistless as the will of God. But they cost 
scrips, these piles of polished machinery and throb- 
bing life do ; and with that regard for economy which 
has always characterized me, I think I have discov- 
ered a plan by which this work can be done at a 
nearly nominal expense, I only wonder that Chicago, 
with her accredited " git " and " gumption," has not 
adopted BPy plan before. I will explain privately to 
you. My plan is this : At the shore end of the 
tunnel build a large tank or reservoir, put two first- 
class whales in it, and let them spout the water up. 
Simple, isn't it .? and feasible, too, and cheap. You 
see the whales would furnish their own clothes and 
lodging, and all the oil they would need for lights 
to work nights by, and the city would really be out 
nothing but their board. Whales have always been 
in the water elevating business, so this would be 
right in their line. They would work and think it 
was fun — just as a boy sometimes, but not most 
always, does — and there is no good reason why 
their sportive instinct should not be turned to prac- 
tical use. Their willingness to do a fellow a good 
turn is proven by the fact that several years ago one 
of them gave a preacher man named Jonah cabin 
passage for a three days' trip, and never even asked 
to punch his ticket at meal time, and didn't charge 
him half fare, but treated him like a first-class dead- 
head, and wouldn't take a cent. 

I am confident of the final success of my plan, 



96 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

but the prejudice of people against innovations may- 
retard its operation for some time yet. 

Speaking of water makes me think that Chicago, 
like St. Paul, has a river, only not so much so. 
Rivers most always run by large cities ; they seem to 
like to, some way. But this is a brigandish sort of 
river, black, foul and murky, and in the dark night 
it steals sullenly through the city, like a prowling 
fiend. Sometimes drunken men stumble into it, and 
awake from their stupor in another world; and 
sometimes fair and beautiful girls, whose lives have 
been clouded with sin, and upon whom the intoler- 
able burden of remorse and despair presses with a 
crushing weight, seeks its dark depths as a refuge — 
bury their griefs and shame — let us hope their sin 
also — in its bosom, and so, shudderingly, pass from 
the scorn and cruelty of life into the presence of 
infinite pity and boundless love. 

There is a Board of Trade here, made up of mer- 
chant men and bliffers. Sometimes they sell what 
they haven't got, and don't have money enough to 
get itj and then their occupation is gone almost 
immediately. And there are meeting-houses — lots 
of them. Country people call them churches, but 
preaching rinks is the fashionable name. Some of 
these rinks are big and splendid, and people that go 
in them worship in a highly elegant manner. The 
music is better than in Brignoli's recent operas here, 
and the preacher men pitch into each other some- 
times, and their " mills " are reported by the enter- 
prising local papers here. 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 97 

There are taverns here, no end of them hardly, 
and some of the quiet looking fellows that keep the 
books can beat Sheridan on a charge. 

But I can't finish this letter. It is too hot. The 
mercury is clear up in the attic of its tubular tene- 
ment. I have " peeled " successive garments, till I 
should blush to meet a marble goddess, and so, 
sweating, but serene, I remain, yours truly. 



THANKSGIVING — 1862. 

Great Father of all tribes of men! 

Thou Sovereign over all 
To thee our M^illing knees we bend. 

Before thee gladly fall. 

We give thee thanks, O Sovereign King, 

For blessings from thy hand ; 
O may thy presence light our way. 

Thy smile illume our land. 

Though -^ar's mailed hand is red vv^ith blood, 
And earth groans with the slain. 

From seeming ill shall spring the good, 
Nor life be lost in vain. ■ 

For where our starry banner waves 

Our armies fight for thee ; 
And though the path lead over graves. 

The goal is liberty. 



98 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

There is no grace more becoming a man, no 
attribute more essential to the perfect development 
of his manhood, than humanity. Religion may add 
dignity to the lustre of this endowment, and reck- 
less living may do much to mar its beauty ; but this 
jewel, whether set in the fitting accompaniment of 
blameless living, or gleaming out from a disordered 
life, like virgin gold amid worthless dirt, still has an 
intrinsic worth which adorns and enriches its pos- 
sessor. 

By humanity we do not mean alone that natural 
impulse of the heart which prompts us to relieve 
physical want or suffering when presented to us, but 
also that more delicate sensibility which appreciates 
mental as well as physical conditions — that thought- 
ful and far-out-looking sympathy, which recognizes 
the suffering we do not see ; that condition of mind 
in which its possessor, himself sitting securely in com- 
fort and ease, still hears in undertones the weary 
cry of the world's suffering ones, and strives, not 
alone to relieve isolated cases of suffering, but to 
lift up classes and peoples into more hopeful and 
happy life. This is the true glory of man. Human- 
ity like this, careful of small things, yet reaching 
towards large results, takes on the nobility of that 
charity which religion places first among the virtues, 
and the man who cherishes it in his heart has a 
royalty within him which he can no more hide than 
a prince can disguise his native bearing beneath the 
vestures of a clown. 



LUTE TAYLOR'S CHIP BASKET. 99 



SOCIAL CORRESPONDENCE. 

Mr Taylor had a very extensive social corre- 
spondence, embracing not only a large number of 
relatives, but a wide circle of other friends, most of 
whom were persons of literary tastes and habits 
and among the number several who have won high 
distmction in the literary world. This volume fur- 
nishes space for only a few selections from Mr Tay- 
lor s social correspondence, but these cover a long 
series of years, running from the school days of his 
early boyhood, nearly up to the time of his death 

The followmg are letters to a cousin. The first 
was written when he was but seventeen years of age 
while he was at work in the stone quarries at Ma- 
lone, N. Y. It bears date May 23, 1852 : 

Dear Cousin : 

No wonder Ik Marvel said, " blessed be letters." He didn't 
mean a short business scrawl, nor a free.ingly polite and eL 
gant one pnm as a young miss's new bonnet, without any 
sentiment or soul in it; no, he meant a free, iashin. easy 
chatty letter, full of trust, truthfulness and affection, o^; tl; 
was co.ned in the heart and not in the head ; in sCt us 
such an one as I received from you two weeks ago. ' ' 

Now, Mellie, are not such letters worth having^ How 
much wider the world seems, how much better iffe s^Z 
how the soul enlarges, and the afl-ec.ions deepen wh le rlrd 
mg letters that come fresh from the heart. * » * j 1" 
glad you were so well pleased with the poems I sent yo^ 
Thanks for the urgent invitation to make you a visit I ,e^i 
you, Mellie. I had planned a visit to yo/when return d 



lOO LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

home, and thought much of the pleasure it would be, of the 
warm, hearty grasp of your hand, and, perhaps, give you a 
— a — k — (excuse me, Mellie, no use in dodging) a kiss, and 
receive a much better one, besides seeing the other whole 
house full of cousins. But the return of our folks from the 
west changes all my plans, and now I cannot tell when I 
shall see you. 

You say you have read " Dream Life." Wasn't it a treat, 
though ? I believe that " Dream Life " will do more good in 
the world than all the sermons of mafiy Christian preachers 
who have grown gray in their sacred office. 

Now, Mellie, write soon ; I cannot afford to wear out my 
boots running to the office in vain. Good bye. 

Your aff". Cousin, Lute 

MiDDLEBURY, May 2gth, 'j-j. 
Dear Cousin Mellie: 

Here I am, in the good town of Middlebury ; its gray old 
college staring me in the face ; the famed" green mountains " 
rear themselves around me, their proud tops half hidden by 
the light mist which, driven from the valleys, clings around 
their summits, as if reluctant to float on heavenward ; the 
rich fields are smiling in the sunlight, and the bob-o-link 
is ti-illing his song as merrily as if there was no such thing 
as heart desolation in the world. You will probably wonder 
at my dating from M., but the " thread of true love " is not 
the only one that does not run straight and smooth, and we 
are continually reminded, 

" There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we will." 

School closed three weeks ago last Friday, Mrs. W. was 
taken sick. Last Sabbath they discovered that her lungs 
were diseased. Monday counsel was called, and pronounced 
her case very critical. Monday night she failed very fast, and 
Tuesday, about twelve o'clock, she died. She was perfectly 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. ioi 

aware of her condition, and talked freely and calmly about 
it. Her death was easy and peaceful — just as the taper 
burns to the socket — flickers — expires. The death-bed 
scene was very impressive to me. When they saw that she 
was sinking, I called in the minister and a few neighbors. 
When we entered the room she was lost to consciousness — 
had already entered the dim, mysterious realm, where the 
golden light of heaven meets and mingles with the dark 
shadows of earth. We knelt in prayer, and in a short, earn- 
est petition, the man of God commended her to the Saviour, 
and prayed that her departing spirit might be received where 
there is " fullness of joy forevermore." Oh, Mellie, how are 
we taught the evanescence of all things earthly! How are 
we admonished that 

"Life is but shadows — save a promise given 
That lights the future with a fadeless ray," 

and when we see the earnest, the hopeful and the young 
dropping away from the dusty path of life, how fitting seems 
the blessed entreaty — 

" Come, touch the scepter — win a hope in heaven, 
Come, turn thy spirit from the world away." 

Mrs. W. has always treated me with marked kindness, and 
I have been in her society so much for the last six months, 
and enjoyed it so well, that her death seems more like a 
dream than a reality. There are dark spots on the sun of 
life, Mellie, but let us pray for each other that we may so 
live that we may at last be received into that bright world 
where 

" Each tie 
Of pure affection shall be knit again." 

I was very much pleased with your comparison of our 
characters, till you made the exception in my favor. Pooh, 
Mellie, you didn't mean to flatter me, I know, but you are a 
little mistaken as to my abilities. You know every neighbor- 



102 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

hood, and almost every family, has some " wondrous child," 
who is to " bring the flown muses back to men." I suppose 
I have been so unfortunate as to be deemed one of that class. 
What I might do I know not, but I never have accomplished 
anything, either in study or writing, above mediocrity. Dur- 
ing the past six or eight months I have read a good deal of 
our best English literature, and while I have enjoyed a great 
deal of pleasure in reading it, I have been enabled to see 
plainly my thrice diminished inferiority. I have lately been 
into the prose works of Coleridge. They are a rich mine of 
thought. One feels, on laying down the book, as if he had 
been carried to some high eminence, where the soul breathed 
in its native air. I never got at the wealth of Burns till 
lately. His melodies flow as free and artless, as sweet and 
charming, as the bird songs. My love for WilHs "grows 
with my growth." His earlier poems I like the best. There 
is a tenderness — a delicacy — a fragrance — a truthfulness 
about them which is truly bewitching. While they glitter 
with beauty like a polished diamond, they are still the reposi- 
tories of his true heart-life, and they will be read as long as 
poesy is loved and admired. 

The scenery around the mountains here is grand. The 
breezes give one new life and vigor. I never enjoyed the 
spring so much before. It seems as if I should love to give 
myself up to its sweet influences ; " commune with Nature in 
her visible forms," and learn lessons of gratitude and thanks- 
giving to the great Author of all. What a beautiful figure 
that is which represents heaven as an eternal spring ! 

Your coz.. Lute. 

Under date of May 12, 1855, he writes, in refer- 
ence to abandoning the idea of attending college, as 
follows : 

You say you wish to know my plans. My whole stock of 
plans at present are these — to write a little, eat, and go to 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. I03 

bed. The idea of going to college I have pretty much given 
up. There are evils in life about as bad as ignorance, and 
one of these is to be everlastingly in debt — a calamity which, 
with heaven's help, shall never overtake me. I have neither 
grace nor genius enough so that I could conscientiously re- 
ceive aid from any benevolent society, and so the by-laws of my 
constitution seem to preclude my going to college. Long- 
fellow, in " Hyperion," says, " The setting of a great hope is 
like the setting of the sun." But, you know, when the sun 
sets the stars come coyly out, and so I may find many quiet 
joys and wayside pleasures from which a college life would 
shut me out. But the sun of my hope has not wholly set, 
though its disc has dipped sadly below the horizon. 

Sabbath, 5 o'clock, P. M, 
Dear Mellie: 

I wish you were here this afternoon. It is not always we 
feel like visiting, but if you were here now I know we would 
have a quiet, pleasant and cousinly chat. 

You made a little apology for writing in a spirit somewhat 
sad. No need of it, dear cousin. For myself, I never intend 
to fish with 

*' The fool's bait — melancholy, 
For the gudgeon — opinion," 

but the cloud and the sunshine alternate in the summer 
heaven ; and so, sometimes, the clouds will dim the sunshine 
in the happiest heart. I do truly believe that sorrow is holier 
than joy, and tears lie nearer the heart than smiles. I know 
that the letters which I most carefully preserve and oftenest 
re-read are not those which sparkle with wit, but those which 
dim the eye and awaken serious thought, I like to receive 
letters from you, cousin, written in every mood of mind, be- 
cause they give me the assurance that you have a whole-hearted 
sympathy with me, and, I trust, I have the same with you. 
To most of my correspondents I reveal only one phase of 
character, but to you I write in all moods. 



I04 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

I frequently have such doubts and fears as you relate. I 
hardly know what to think of my spiritual state. I know I 
have a love to God for his goodness, yet I have little of the 
spirit of devotion. Faith often is weak, and painted visions 
of sin have a strange charm, and I feel a mysterious power 
tempting me to shake oft" all restraint and lead a life of wild 
and reckless freedom. The set phrases of theology appear to 
me dead and unmeaning. I have bothered my brain too 
much with metaphysical reasoning — with speculation on 
things " beyond the reaches of the soul." My belief in creeds 
is shaken, but I still hold firmly to the belief that the name 
of Christ is the only one given under heaven among men 
whereby we may be saved. This afternoon the minister took 
for his text, " Come unto me, ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest." I looked for a description of 
the /^// wants of the soul — of those yearnings for something 
higher and holier — of that strange unrest we often feel ; 
and then, I thought, the love of Christ and the rest of heaven 
would be shown in words of lyrical power and beauty which 
would lure the weary, wandering soul to Calvary, while the 
choir, I thought, would surely close with that sweet hymn of 
Moore's, "Come, ye disconsolate," etc. But the sermon was 
logical, and the music noisy and heartless, and I came away 
dissatisfied, but, perhaps, all the fault was with myself. 

Ah, cousin, the way of life will sometimes look dark and 
uncertain, but we must walk forward with what faith we 
may have. 

" It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, 
It may be we shall reach the happy isles." 

I have been reading " Bertha and Lilly ; or, the Parsonage 
at Beech Glen," by Mrs. Oakes Smith. The style is pure and 
musical ; the thought fresh, strong and elevating. It is writ- 
ten in earnestness, and deals some strong blows at existing 
practices in social and religious life. There are a few things 
which I do not hke, but, as a whole, I value it highly. It 
draws character in clear and vigorous lines ; it deals more 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. I05 

with inner than with outward experiences, and is admirably 
fitted to awaken thought upon those things which most con- 
cern us as immortal beings. Bertha is a calm, intellectual, 
spiritual woman, with that divine intuition which sees truth 
however hidden, and the moral courage to 

' " Dare all things which she knows to be right." 

She has a soul filled with poetry and passion, but she sits a 
queen over it, and its desires and loves are holy, 

I send you a little scrap of rhyme, not because I value it 
much, or suppose you will, but friends are apt to be indulgent 
critics. It came without calling, one Sabbath evening, and so 
I took a pencil and jotted it down, just to treat it hand- 
somely, as I would any guest. As I grow older I enjoy 
poetry with a keener relish, and, as I have a truer perception 
of what poetry is» I make fewer rhymes ; indeed, I have done 
making poetry. Your cousin. 

Lute. 



Madrid, Aug. igth, 'j/. 
Dear Cousin Mellie: 

Will you never write to me again? Do tlie duties of life 
press so closely on you you can find no time to use the pen ? 
Did you not know you promised, when you went away, to 
answer some of my letters? I believe, if I want to hear 
from my friends, I shall have to go to Oregon, or somewhere 
efl'se. If you do not write before long, I will — come (or go, 
rather,) to Canton, to see what the matter is. To-day I felt 
a strange unrest. I was going to take Byron, and lose my- 
self in the wild, rushing current of his verse ; but I knew I 
was not in the right state of mind to go to him, so I over- 
came the temptation, and got a package of letters of yours 
and others, and, need I say, I spent a pleasant and profitable 

hour in their perusal. Dear L ! she seems dearer to me 

now than ever, for she has passed the Stygian stream, and 
entered the " bright city of our God." How true it is, 



io6 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

*' We know not of love's might 
Till death has robed, with soft and solemn light, 
The image we enshrine." 

Her quiet and serene trust in the Heavenly Father while 
stepping from the shore of life into the wide, unknown future, 
has given me more of faith than could all the reasoning of 
theologians. I see her to-night as I did the morning when 
I last saw her in life. She sat in the rocking-chair during 
family devotion, and well I remember the expression of her 
countenance as she joined you in singing the hymn, 

" Father, whate'er of earthly bliss," etc. 

As the hymn was being sung, I thought the petition for "a 
calm and thankful heart " was answered, and I have often 
since thought how surely did his presence " crown her jour- 
ney's end." I have never since listened to that hymn but, in 
fancy, I have seen her pale, sweet face, and heard her low 
voice mingle in the strain. Do you, Mellie, feel certain that 
there is a better world — a heaven where loved ones live in 
very truth? At times I feel a full conviction this is so, but, 
again, doubts will come that there is any intelligent life be- 
yond the tomb. I know better, but I have not faith enough 
to drive the devil away. 

Is it unkind in me, Mellie, to call up to your mind thoughts 
that dim the eye and sadden the heart. If so, forgive me. 
But you will not think so. If the dead live, and we are to 
live with them, why not talk and think of them as we do of 
other friends separated from us. I believe one of the great 
joys of heaven will be the opportunity for friends to hold 
free and unrestrained communion with each other. To-night 
I have felt kind love for many friends, and longed to sit by 
their side, and quietly and pleasantly hold heart communion 
with them. But when we meet we shall be soiled with the 
sweat and dust of worldly life ; we shall chat about the insig- 
nificant things of the present, and thoughts that in quiet hours 
plead for utterance will be forgotten. How rare it is here 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. I07 

on the earth that two kindred spirits meet in that high sphere 
of friendship, where, without restraint, the heart can speak of 
its hopes and fears, its wants and desires, its visions of beauty, 
its vague yearnings for the good unattained. But I must 
write no more now, lest I grow gloomy, and I am determined 
to cut the acquaintance of the blues. So good night, cousin, 
and God grant that 

" We may walk this world 
Yoked in all exercise of noble end, 
And go through those dark gates across the wild 
That no man knows." 

Your cousin. 

Lute A. Taylor. 

Madrid, Sabbath, P. M., Aug. 26th, 'j-j-. 
My Dearest Cousin : 

Many thanks to you for your last letter. Oh, cousin, how 
such words of kindness, of confidence and trust lift the soul 
into a better atmosphere and make life more bearable! You 
ask, Mellie, that I will not think any the less of you for show- 
ing me some passages of your inner life. O no ; I feel assured 
that the better we understand each other, the broader will be 
our ground of sympathy. Forgive me, cousin, for my words 
of indifference at parting with you. I was sorry the moment 
the words had passed my lips. The thought of repelhng any 
flattery on your part never entered my mind. Never, even 
in thought, |iave I accused you oi flattery ; though sometimes 
I have thought you overrated my abilities. I felt sad to see 
you drive away, for I felt that, probably, our paths in life 
would be widely separated, and that I might soon lose even 
your occasional companionship. I do not think I am very 
reserved or cold in language when with friends I love and 
trust, but I have an antipathy to expressing feeling before 
others, and so my words often give the lie to my thought. It 
may be a weakness, and I think it is, but you must set down 
to its account any unmeaning or indifferent words I may ever 



io8 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

speak to you. I suppose, Mellie, if I was a philosopher, I 
should prove that as excessive joy is often shown by tears, 
and the most crushing grief finds vent in hollow laughter, so 
the truest and deepest love, despairing to truly interpret 
itself in affectionate speech, throws out light words of indiff'er 
ence or jest. 

But I must tell you some good news. I have got four 
new books: "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli," in two 
volumes ; her " Woman in the Nineteenth Century," and " The 
Blithedale Romance," by Hawthorne. Mother thought I was 
a little foolish to get them, but she does not understand my 
case. Books are a necessary adjunct of my life. I do not 
look upon the reading of books as the end of life, but as a 
means to enable one to understand the right end of life, and 
as helps to fulfill it. By nature I am not a thinker. The 
necessities of my being do not compel me into thought. 
Without the aid of books I should sink into an aftmial, and 
I feel that is a thing to be shunned. The past year, which I 
have spent at home, has been very pleasant and profitable for 
my heart, but my head has been a loser. A few fancies like 
the "Chamber Scene" have been almost its only tenants. 
The fact is, if one labors in the earth his thoughts will be 
earthy. Shakspeare is right where he says one's nature 

'' Is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand." 

For this reason, I believe the farmer — the business man — 
has urgent need of those books which serve to quicken and 
keep alive the ethereal spirit within him. The memoirs of 
Margaret Fuller have done more for me than any other book 
I ever read, excepting, of course, the Book of God. She has 
taught me, more than any other, " to open the deeper foun- 
tains of the soul, to regard life here as the prophetic entrance 
to immortality, to develop the spirit towards perfection." I 
feel I am a slow learner, yet my reverence for the teacher is 
none the less. Were I a Catholic, she would be my chosen 
saint. 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. I09 

Sept. 2d. — I have been at home to-day with the children. 
I have been reading most of the time, and it has been a calm 
and blessed day. I suppose we ought to go to church ; but, 
after all, I do not think I get as much good as by staying at 
home. Amid the waving of fans, the rustling of ribbons and 
silks, the snoring of the sleepers, and the idle or satisfied 
look of the men or women cased in Sunday clothes, my 
thought does not so easily take hold of the high views of life 
as when alone. We have been reading the " Blithedale Ro- 
mance " evenings. When I first read this book it interested 
and excited me the most, I think, of any book I ever read, and 
my interest was but little diminished on the second reading. 

I could see the thoughts took hold of L , for his prayer 

at evening worship had a clearer aim — a greater breadth and 
earnestness. I judge of the activity of a person's inner life 
much by their prayers. If there is new and rich experience 
in the heart, it must give birth to new and meaning words. 
But with the most who pray, does not one stereotyped form 
of expression last them through life? 

But, to return to Hawthorne. I believe he has a hearty 
love for purity and truth, but his keen eye detects moral de- 
formity, and with steady, unflinching hand, he la_ys it bare, 
not in bitterness, but in sorrow. Sometimes he lays aside 
the probe and pruning-knife, walks with us in the scenes of 
nature, and indulges in pleasantry and humor. But I do not 
think he will ever be read by the multitude. His works have 
not enough of sensuousness in them. But he will be read by 
the connoisseur of human passion, by the student of char- 
acter, by those interested in a spiritual life, who will yet 
follow out thoughts which may lead them to doubt things 
they had been taught to believe. 

I have such a cold I cannot spare my hand from my nose 
long enough to write more. Yours, 

Lute. 



no LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

River Falls, Wis., Jtme 2jd, i860. 
Dear Cousin Mellie: 

Like Daniel Webster, you " still live." Well, Mellie, I am 
glad to hear it. I have a recollection of formerly correspond- 
ing with you — indeed, in hunting over my manuscript treas- 
ures, this afternoon, I saw a number of letters which I am 
positive were in your handwriting. I also think I have a 
recollection of seeing you some time in years gone by. I 
think I went with you once to the " hill country " called 
Pierrepont, one autumn day, and sat beside the grave of one 
who had formerly sat often with you ; and, returning, we 
stopped at a place, and I brought away a little case, (which 
lies in my secretary, within reach of me now,) which always 
reminds me of you. 

But really, dear Mellie, I am glad you have written once 
more to me. I have been expecting to write to you for a long 
time, but have not done it. I write very few letters, except 
what my business compels me to, and I have nearly lost, if I 
ever had, the art of doing it. But I do not suppose you want 
a nice letter from me — a kind of Lute-letter will suit you 
better, I know. I supposed you were owing me a letter, but 
perhaps not. 

Say, Mellie, what do you think of this world ? I have an 
idea that it is quite well adapted for the residence of just 
such persons as you and I. With strawberry shortcakes and 
good cigars, and a good, dear mother to keep me in clean 
linen and good advice, I feel very well reconciled to life. 

I want to see you, Mellie, and become acquainted with you 
in the character of Mrs. and mother. What are you, Mellie? 
A girl still? or a patient, thoughtful, woman? or a delightful 
combination of both? Probably Charlie would say the latter, 
but I would not give a five-cent paper of chewing-tobacco for 
his opinion on the subject. What do you think of Tom 
Moore's " Lalla Rookh" now? What of the novelists? What 
of all the rose-colored dreams of boys and girls, your own 
former achievements in that line included? Isn't marriage a 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. Ill 

terrible alchemist, at whose touch all these fair and fanciful 
combinations of things dreamed of and hoped for, crumble 
and lie charred and dead in the crucible? Understand, now, 
I believe in married folks loving — of course I do — but I 
want to know whether love w^armed by Hymen's torch is like 
that kindled by Cupid. Is it a patient kind of Christian 
"putting up" with things? or is it the genuine "seventh 
heaven in a glance," tempest in a teapot, etc.? An early 
answer is desired. 

But about that little, dear, diminutive edition of humanity, 
who doubtless makes you so much trouble and gives you so 
much joy — I am glad she has learned that I am "mamma's 
cousin.' W^ll, you give that little one a kiss for me, and don't 
(as I know you will be apt to) tell her that I am a great and 
good man, but tell her I am a jolly fellow, and like to play 
with the little girls, and tell them stories, and stand them on 
their heads, and give them primers and candies, and so on 
and so forth. 

But I have to go away, and must stop. Please write soon, 
dear cousin, and believe me 

Yours affectionately, 

Lute. 

Prescott, June jst, i86^. 
Dear Cousin Mellie: 

I suppose, Mellie, I am one of the happiest fellows in this 
world — in fact, I don't see why I should not be. The 
ambitions, the vague desires, the feverish unrest which boys 
of any spirit always feel, have quieted down, and I am just a 
happy, contented, jovial fellow. 

I shall not startle the world any, if I can help it — and I 
am pretty sure I can. For my wife and I — I simply pray 

"Touch us gently, gentle Time ! 
Let us float adown life's stream 
Gently, as we sometimes float 
In a quiet dream." 



112 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

You, Mellie, would enjoy such a life, I know. Work 
enough, but of an agreeable kind; leisure, books, music, 
friends, rest. I believe you will be so fixed one of these days ; 
but the trouble is, life is short, and is fast going. 

Summer opens to-day with marvelous beauty. It is the 
day of mourning for the great man gone, and the almost 
Sabbath stillness is broken only by the magnificent steamer 
which is just rounding up to the levee. A nation solemnly 
mourns to-day and sets its seal of approbation on the of&cial 
life and private character of Abraham Lincoln. 

*' A martyr to the cause of man ! 
His blood is Freedom's eucharist, 
And in the world's great hero-list 
His na7ne shall lead the van.''^ 

How Strange it is that many good men will be such fools. 
To-day the scholars in all our public schools met together, 
and there was singing, prayer, and talk about Abraham Lin- 
coln. The talk was almost all sheer nonsense and ridiculous 
lies. Abraham Lincoln was represented as a model boy, who 
never swore, or played in the dirt, or cried for bread and 
butter, or chewed tobacco, or licked another boy, or ran 
away, or did anything else that boys like to do ; and the idea 
was held out that every boy there might be President if he 
would be like him. How ridiculous ! Half those children 
know that Andy Johnson was President, and that he and half 
our other Presidents were drunk sometimes. Such namby- 
pamby talk does not deceive half the children even, and those 
who do believe it now as they grow older will see that it was 
all false— that it takes brain and work and power to win 
position, and that immoral habits, unless exceedingly gross, 
are no bar to high official standing. Integrity, ability and 
capacity are wanted to manage public affairs, and the skeptic 
is as apt to have these as the churchman. 

Then there were over one hundred little girls there, and a 
good man and great fool talked to them — how when they 
grew up to be young women they should never marry or have 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. I13 

anything to do with a young man who chewed tobacco, 
smoked cigars, played cards, or drank beer. Wasn't that 
silly ? I should have been an old bachelor under that admin- 
istration of affairs, surely. I do all these things, and yet my 
wife thinks and says I am the best husband in the world — 
and I believe her. Well, I didn't mean to rattle on this way 
— a model letter this will be. Yours always. 

Lute. 

The following are extracts from letters to a young 
lady friend : 

La Crosse, Oct. 8th, 1872. 
My Dear M : 

Have you got entirely out of patience with me for neglect- 
ing to write you ? Have you " admitted " (entirely to yourself) 
that Lute Taylor is not the gentleman you supposed him to 
be? Have you vowed, in silence, to let him go many weeks 
or months without another welcome letter from you ? 

Ah, my dear girl, if you have done all and several of these 
things, I pray you to reconsider. Your letters have been 
gladly welcomed and greatly enjoyed by me. I have thought 
of you perhaps more than a married man should think of an 
interesting and talented young lady. To all this, I am willing. 

Miss M y to make oath before any notary public who has 

a seal, or any magistrate, officer or judge who is legally quali- 
fied to receive solemn evidence. 

Why, then, you indignantly ask, have you not written to 
me, when you knew I was among strangers and would highly 
prize a letter? 

My dear girl, when will you learn to have patience, and 
not interrupt a person when he is making a statement? I fear 
you do not fully comprehend the great benevolence and self- 
abnegation of my nature. You know that there is no diviner 
act than forgiveness. It is exalting, ennobling. I am anxious 
to have you as noble as possible. You must have occasion to 



114 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

forgive. It is education. You can now forgive me, and thus 
I will be an humble instrument in promoting your greatest 
good. 

Oct. ijth. — Well, now, this is something of a recess, is it 
not? Broke oft" imperatively — then a few days' absence, a 
few days' sickness, the inexorable claims of business, the una- 
voidable claims of politics, and the numerous claims of social 
courtesy, and — well, here I am at 7 A. M., and nothing mortal 
can get audience of me until I have finished, enveloped, di- 
rected this letter, and placed it in the mailing-box. 

When this confounded election excitement is over, you will 
find me' a more reliable correspondent. This letter I don't 
count anything, for it does not amount to anything; but"by- 
and-by " I will atone for it, and until then believe me 
Your friend. 

Lute A. Taylor. 



La Crosse, Sunday, Sept. 8th, 1872. 
My Dear Friend: 

Your very welcome letter came Friday morning. 

I have never read a letter from you with greater pleasure 
than this one. You were a trifle " blue," my glad-hearted, 
exuberant-spirited girl ; and do you know that when we have 
the " blues " we tell the truth, and we write only to those with 
whom the invisible ties of mutual liking and natural compan- 
ionship are strong ? And so your letter conferred a pleasure 
and conveyed a compliment. 

Of course I know you have the " blues "—seasons of de- 
pression—occasionally. They are the penalty of intense 
spiritual hfe and rich intellectual endowment. The pendulum 
which swings high in one arc of the circle vibrates to as high 
an opposing place, and so high as the singing soul sits on the 
fancy-lighted mount of hope and joy, so low must it darkly 
descend into valleys of cruel doubt and almost shuddering 
despair. It is the law of compensation, you know The 
giddy girls of your rural neighborhood know nothing of the 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. II5 

fine ecstacy of your inspired hours, but neither is it possible 
for them to feel the sharp pain, the exquisite agony which will 
sometimes torture you in dumb hours of doubt and distrust. 
Genius, power, breadth of vision, intensity of feeling, quick 
and sensitive perception — these are glorious gifts, but they are 
regal, and imperative also. Such splendid guests cannot be 
lightly entertained. But if such life is not a boon, then anni- 
hilation would be the goal of happiness. 

Very truly your friend. 

Lute A. Taylor. 



La Crosse, August iSth, 1872. 
My Dear Miss M : 

Your pleasant letter, with photo, inclosed, came yesterday 
morning, and, for once, I will not let procrastination steal 
away the time for answering it. 

I am glad that, in epistolary matters, you find it "more 
blessed to give than to receive," and are willing to write me 
six letters for one in return. But, my dear girl, I shall not 
allow you to do it. No lady whom I like can have all the 
talking to herself when I am around. But I am glad you are 
not exacting, and will not resent any apparent neglect on my 
part. 

Do you know that I am very glad that our brief personal 
acquaintance is ripening into mutual friendship and esteem. 
Knowledge is increased, experience enlarged, and life enriched 
with every worthy new friend. Men and women are the 
flower of earthly life, and superior to all the attractions that 
even affluent Nature can offer. To learn one of these well is 
more and better than to learn a new language or visit a 
foreign clime. And so, I prize my life as richer since you 
have come within its horizon, and become one of the small 
but cherished company who share its thought, encourage its 
toil, and awaken its love. 

Many thanks for the photo. It is a charming picture, and 
I think a good likeness. I expected to ask you for one, but 



ii6 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

had not, as I think I am probably the most timid and modest, 
if not bashful, gentleman of your acquaintance. 

Do not work too hard, — do not let the fever of fancy burn 
up the rich blood of life. And you will not. Youth is prodi- 
gal of wealth ; but coming days will inevitably teach you to 
carefully gather the harvest of thought, and only offer what is 
worthiest and best. 

It is the bane of active newspaper writing that one has 
no time to improve ; but you will never be connected with a 
paper so as to feel this tyrannous pressure. 

But — good-bye for the present. Remember that, among 
all your friends, none feel more joy in your success, or more 
faith in your future, than Lute. 

The following extracts are from letters to a for- 
mer correspondent of Mr. Taylor's paper, who wrote 
over the signature of "Belle." 

Prescott, Wis., April 2jth, 1868. 
My Dear Friend Miss Belle: 

Have you about made up your mind that I was not intend- 
ing t® answer your two very welcome little letters? Well, 
that just shows how the best of women will be mistaken 
sometimes. Their intuitions, rapid as lightning, outrunning 
the processes of reasoning, are generally unerring as logic, 
but not always so. 

I warrant. Miss Belle, that it never occurred to you that 
my long delay is the most convincing proof of the sincerity 
and strength of my friendship. But you will admit it now, I 
know. You know that if I should receive a pleasant note 
from a pleasant lady, of whose good opinion I was careless, 
that I should hasten to answer it. Courtesy, and every in- 
stinct of a gentleman, would prompt to this. But with a friend, 
you know — a real friend — whose confidence we hold by no un- 
certain tenure — how difierent it is ! One does not have to be 
punctilious, — he presumes on the friendship, and shows the 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 117 

strength of his confidence by the amount of his presumption. 
He sins with impunity, because he knows he is sure of for- 
giveness. You will thus see, friend Belle (what, come to 
reflect, you must have seen before), that my delay in writing 
has been only a delicate avowal of a feeling for you such as I 
would have if I had been lucky enough to have been your 
cousin, or, in some other way, been made sure of a permanent 
place in your kind remembrance. [Just here let me say it 
will not be necessary for you to acquaint me with your feel- 
ings in a similar manner.] 

But again. Miss Belle, some way I have been terribly busy 
about nothing for several months, — away much of the time ; 
and when I had time to write, it seemed as if my mind was 
too dull to write to you. You never have been a business 
man, have you ? Well, don't be. It is terribly irksome much 
of the time. I came down to my office to-night to write busi- 
ness letters, but such employment seems like profaning the 
sweet, sacred beauty of the night. I was disgusted with it ; 
and so I write to you, — a sort of grace before meal, — a 
placid morning prayer before the sharp struggles of the day. 
But I must begin writing this letter. Let us be very 
proper, and commence on the conventional topic — the 
weather. Our Spring, making fair and early promise, has 
been very slow to fulfill her pledge. The bluffs are yet brown 
and bare, and the grass only just tinges the fields with its green. 
The robin has just come to-day, and the few early flowers 
"come in such questionable shape" that I have hardly dared 
to speak to them. You, I know, are in the full flowering of 
greenness and beauty, — Spring wearing for weeks the finest 
attire her wardrobe supplies. Yet I doubt if to-day your 
eyes have feasted on much greater beauty than mine. I 
watched the sunset, and the brilliant combinations and deH- 
cate shadings of color for a half-hour after, until I felt exhila- 
rated and intoxicated with beauty, and the blood sprang warm 
to my cheek, as if the life and vigor of rare wine was in its ' 
flow. Lake and river were hushed, still, translucent, — a 



ii8 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

thin, impalpable, glory-lit haze brooding over them, like a 
gossamer veil on the face of a bride, — the heaven above 
seeming to stoop to kiss the heaven below, save where the red 
glory of the descending sun, reflected from low-lying clouds, 
glowed on the waters in colors as rich as the purple stain 
which a lover's clinging kiss leaves on the lips of his maid. 

I just now think. Belle, of several things I would like to 
write to you about; but those "business" letters must be 
attended to. Sincerely your friend. 

Lute A. Taylor. 

P. S. — If you have not read Owen Meredith's "Lucille," 
do not lose an opportunity to do so. It is a pretty ripe 
poem, — no "Leaves of Grass." Lute. 

Under date of June 20, 1868, in speaking of 
friends, he says of his mother: 

Mother is quite smart, but yet I know she must be near- 
ing the close of life ; and she seems dearer to me as she 
draws nearer to the " other shore." She will leave mourners 
here, but she will find friends there. 

La Crosse, Wis., Jiily 20, i86q. 
My Dear Friend Belle: 

What are you going to do about it — I mean about my 
totally inexcusable neglect (as it seems to you) to write to 
you ? What have you done with me ? Am I blotted out of 
your book of remembrance — erased from your hst of corre- 
spondents — totally non est — expunged — obliterated — gone ? 

Begging your pardon, Miss Belle, I don't believe any such 
thing. When you have thought of my remissness at all, it 
has been simply to regard it as a kind of mystery — like the 
, relation between free-will and fore-ordination, — something 
that would come out all right, and be satisfactorily explained 
sometime. 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 1 19 

Now, let me explain the reasons of my delay. 

1st. I delayed, without any reason, until I was ashamed of 
myself, and then I did not w.ant to write until I could write a 
good letter, and I have waited in vain for that time, until I 
give it up. 

2d. It is so pleasing to be forgiven by a pleasant lady 
friend — to say "Feccavi" and be absolved. You may for- 
give me, Miss Belle, — I assume that you will, and I feel bet- 
ter already. 

3d. The practice of forgiveness is very wholesome. It is 
not only of itself one of the first-class virtues, but it strength- 
ens and adorns all the others ; and, with a friendly care for 
the beauty and symmetry of your character, I have given you 
the opportunity to forgive me. 

There! Am I reinstated now in your good graces, — 
placed again on the old footing of easy and informal com- 
panionship? Thank you; I thought you would excuse me. 

You have read " Gates Ajar," of course. "What do you 
think of it? I think it is remarkable — not a mere pleasing, 
ephemeral book ; but profound, logical, true. I believe that, 
as " Uncle Tom's Cabin " touched the national heart, 
awakened the national conscience, and gave a mighty im- 
pulse to that political action which has revolutionized the 
South, and blotted out slavery, — so will this book go far to 
awaken new and better trains of thought, and revolutionize 
the commonly-accepted ideas of heaven, — or, rather, give an 
idea where there was none before. I believe in its theories, — 
always have, — though I never gave my thought tangible 
shape, — never tried to reason on the matter, as this book 
does. I have often insisted, to the surprise and almost hor- 
ror of the " Deacon Quii-ks," that, if I ever got to heaven, I 
should be an editor or reporter on the Daily Celestial Stin. I 

am sure of it now. I shall send the book to L . She will 

enjoy and believe it. Do you know L is one of the best 

women in the world? The most valued compliment I ever 
had was that I was a good deal like her. Well, I think I am 



120 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

the same kind of a Christian that she is ; but she is a great 
deal better one of the kind than I am. 

Well, I must close. I think this is long enough for an 
apologetic letter. Very truly your friend, 

Lute A. Taylor. 

La Crosse, June 4th, 187 1. 
My Dear Friend Belle : 

Now, that man who is with you need not take any umbrage 
at the possessive pronoun. You know it is used in a limited 
sense, but he can't rob me of any part of the small possession 
I have in you — not if I can help it. It might be as well to 
let him know this at the outset. 

Your letter, Belle, brought me the first news that you had 
exchanged the Miss for the Mrs. — ceased an integral exist- 
ence and become a member of a firm. How did you think I 
would know it? I no more look at the marriage notices in 
the papers than you do at the calls for ward caucuses, or the 
quotations of Pacific Mail. 

So, dear Belle, my congratulations come late, but heartfelt 
and sincere. Most heartily do I hope that reality may surpass 
expectation, and the promise of trustful love find full verifica- 
tion in the facts of daily life. I do not believe that your 
husband, or any man, is good enough to call you wife, though 
I certainly have a high regard for him from the fact that he 
is your husband. Honestly, Belle, don't you think that the 
highest compliment a woman can pay a man is to marry him ? 
But I send you hearty greeting. You know what Tennyson 
says in the " Princess ": 

" Not like to like, but like in diflference,' etc. 

Well, that is what I say to you. 

Appointing you my proxy to introduce me to " Novy," as 
you so pleasantly introduced him to me in your delightful let- 
ters, and furthermore, and finally, warning you of displeasure, 
if not disaster, if in your new life you drop me from your list 
of correspondents, I am Yours aft'ectionately, Lute. 






LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 121 



TWO PICTURES. 

A few years ago, we were one of a party riding by 
stage from this city to Viroqua— a tedious journey at 
this season, at best — but its tedium was relieved by 
pleasant companions, and by the occasional magnifi- 
cent stretches of scenery which almost rivals the 
Green Mountains of Vermont, or the unexcelled 
views which continually delight the eye about Har- 
per's Ferry, and thence westward along the line of 
the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. When near our 
journey's close, a sight more pleasing than any we 
had met delighted our eyes. 

We passed a party of comfortable appearing folk. 
Among them was a young woman, probably about 
twenty-five years of age. She was a brunette, with 
fresh complexion, dark hair and eyes, and held in 
her arms a babe which looked laughingly from be- 
neath its protecting hood. But the mother seemed 
even more happy than the child. She appeared to 
hold up the beautiful babe as a challenge to all 
passers to share her joy and pride in its possession. 
We all noticed and commented upon this sweet spec- 
tacle of joyful mother and happy child. Of course, 
some pleasantry, or wit, or compliment from her 
companions might have brightened her features at 
that moment, but her look of sweet satisfaction and 
beaming pleasure seemed as if it dwelt there con- 
tinually — as if the sacred joy and pride of maternity 
so filled her heart that It swam in light in her eyes, 



122 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

and rippled in smiles upon her face. It was a pleas- 
ant picture — more pleasant for being real — and 
each of us who witnessed it will cherish it as a 
" thing of beauty and a joy forever." 

This is one picture. 

The next morning we saw its counterpart. It was 
early when we started on our return. The vehicle 
itself — improvised for the occasion in place of the 
regular stage — was open and ill-supplied, with two 
narrow seats facing each other, without the remotest 
suggestion of comfort, coziness or warmth. The 
keen wind cut through our own abundant clothing, 
as we stopped to take in another passenger. She 
came. Great heavens! What an apparition of 
woe ! It seemed as if direst poverty, utter ignorance 
and absolute lunacy combined could alone suffice to 
make a human being so utterly miserable and woe- 
begone as she. A woman of forty or forty-five years 
of age, with heavy shoes, a worn calico dress, and 
evidently little under-clothing, a thin, miserable, 
cotton shawl, a light worsted hood — this was all 
her protection against the biting blast. Her hands 
were bare, and unkempt hair straggled over her 
sunken eyes and desolate face, which wore that 
mottled, lifeless hue which is the most touching 
evidence of extremest suffering and want. A few 
worthless rags in a coarse bag, tossed in after her, 
was her only baggage — no, not all, for here comes 
a little box; there is a smell of fresh paint on it, and 
it is of that shape and form that are never fashioned 
except to enclose the dead. We knew by the hungry 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 1 23 

look with which she devoured it that this was hers, 
and crowding it under the narrow seat, we went rat- 
tUng away. 

Of course it took but a short time to recover from 
our stupor of amazement, and, with the assistance 
of the kind-hearted driver, wrap her up in tolerable 
comfort. The straggling, almost incredulous smile 
of gratitude with which she received a pair of warm 
woolen gloves was something better to remember 
than the smile with which beauty receives her jewels, 
or wealth the luxuries which wealth can alone con- 
fer. The poor creature could speak but a few words 
of English, but we learned that she was entirely des- 
titute of money, that she was traveling from Prairie 
du Chien to Buffalo county, and that on the preced- 
ing evening the child was taken from her arms, on 
the arrival of the stage at Viroqua, dead — dead 
without her knowledge of the fact. One needed 
not to be told that it had been dying since its birth, 
that inadequate food and clothing had combined to 
sap its little life, which finally yielded to the cold 
wind of a winter night, and somewhere on the 
dreary road, unnoticed and unknown, drifted out 
into the great unseen. Yesterday nestling close to 
her for warmth — to-day in the pine box under the 
seat. One can bear to look on the fine agony of a 
strong, sensitive, cultured nature, for the very strength 
which gives intensity to suffering will bring solace in 
due time; but here was wretchedness — weak, un- 
reasoning, helpless and dumb. 

And so we rode all the day, facing this picture of 



124 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

want and despair and the little charity coffin. Look- 
ing at this, she would sometimes reach under her 
wrappings, and get out her worn soiled apron, and 
(with true womanly instinct turning it to the wrong 
side) wipe the half-frozen tears from her withered 
cheeks. 

The luxury of tears, the divine sorrow of maternal 
love, was all that was left her. We could not help 
believing that the little one was better to-day than 
yesterday, better in the coffin than suffering and 
shivering in the mother's arms, but yet her grief 
could be assuaged by no such consolation as this. 
It might be that the only light of her life had gone 
out, that those thin wasted hands were the only ones 
that caressed her cheeks, those little pinched lips 
the only ones that touched hers in tenderness and 
love. Desolate ! Desolate ! In her seemed verified 
the full force of that pregnant passage of Scripture, 
''''without hope i7i the woi'ld^ 

And so the two pictures — happy mother and hag- 
gard wretch — smiling babe and coffined clay — 
sunny joy and ^shivering desolation — stand before 
us in startling antithesis, and, thus strangely mated, 
must remain in the close keeping of memory forever. 

Poems — whether in prose or verse — are simply 
open letters. No one ever writes a really good thing 
without, in thought at least, writing it to somebody. 

It is dreadful easy to be a fool — a man can be 
one and not know it. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket 125 



FISHING, AND OTHER THINGS. 

Bear Trap Lake, Polk Co., Wis., 
Jic?ie I2th, i860. 
Dear Journal : 

Is there room for anything in print but wars and 
rumors of wars? Will matters of State and sensa- 
tion dispatches, and wonder points, and military 
movements, and leaded leaders, make .way for a 
garrulous article, drifting along over the paper, as 
aimless as a boat without steersman drifts before the 
capricious wind.? 

Sitting in this log cabin, looking out upon the 
water broken by the light wind into sparkling jets 
of silver upon the forest trees, with coloring so rich 
that they seem to sparkle with the light of intelli- 
gence, and swaying with a seemingly conscious nod, 
as if their matutinal salutations were not over; lis- 
tening to the varied but not discordant bird-notes, 
coming like morning hymns from hundreds, yes 
thousands, of swelling throats; seeing no throng of 
human life, hearing no hum of human labor; I can 
hardly realize that the great world without is awed 
into solemnity by the tragic events of the day — 
that all our own wide land is a drill ground for 
armies, and already loving hearts are sorrowing for 
the slain. 

Looking at the baggy style of my clothing, its 
somewhat dirty and a good deal dilapidated con- 
dition ; fishing down a long crane-necked bottle for 



126 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

a little muddy ink, I can hardly believe that writing 
is with me a business, and " copy " and " proof- 
sheets " familiar terms. 

You float over the placid lake, fringed with its 
setting of dark pines, and its shallows rocking on 
their surface the broad-leaved lily, with its almost 
miraculous beauty, and it seems like the dawn of 
creation, for the touch of time has not marred its 
perfect beauty. You lie under the shadow of the 
trees and listen to the pur of rivulets in the woods, 
to the bird's note lessening in the languid air, to the 
thousand sounds of varied life which fill the forest 
with a low delicious murmur, and then a breeze 
sweeps, like the motion of an unseen hand, through 
the leafy greenness — the foliage shimmers and 
lightly sways, and you feel 

" A divine 
Breath of the summer, full of coquetry, 
Happy and light and loving as a kiss 
Upon the eyelids from the woman you love." 

FROGS. 

But what have frogs to do with fishing.? you ask. 
A vast deal, my sapient friend. You might as well 
try to have a wedding without a woman as to try to 
catch a bass or pickerel without a frog — the thing 
can't be done in any approved and decent fashion. 

Now, many worthy people have an unworthy preju- 
dice against frogs which should be dispelled. Being 
as intimate with them as we have been, watching 
eagerly for them by the side of ponds, holding them 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 127 

tenderly "in the hand, thrusting vest and trowsers 
pockets full of them, occasionally getting a small one 
mixed with the tobacco and smoking him in our 
meerschaum, we have come to a tender and loving 
appreciation of their excellence and merit. As dress 
is always a matter of interest, just look at the cos- 
tume of the frog — a genuine hunter's, green as the 
grasses, scrupulously neat, and changing the whole 
suit two or three times a year. Then what a voice 
they have ! What concerts they give by moonlight ! 
Then, again, a "fellow-feeling makes us wondrous 
kind," and a frog is very like a man. What a human 
leg he has ! How nearly its formation and appear- 
ance is like our own ! Then, who has not seen men 
with frog-like look — bald-pated, short-necked, puffy- 
cheeked and wide mouthed ? Such men are not 
apt to rule in political conventions, but they make 
excellent fathers-in-law. Pardon us, reader, if we 
linger lovingly around the frog. As we have impaled 
him on our hook, we have taken lessons in the manly, 
heroic virtues. There is nothing sublime in the con- 
duct of a young, dashing, frivolous fellow, who has 
never seen grief. He squirms like a snake, and 
when you stick him on the bearded steel, he kicks 
like a devil and whines like a cross child ; but take 
an old russet chap, who has lived out eighteen of 
his twenty years, and braved the hardships of the 
wilderness, and incurred the responsibilities of the 
father of a numerous family : when you seize him, 
he gives a desperate struggle, and then resigns him- 
self to inevitable fate. As the barbed hook passes 



128 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

through him, not a moan of complaint, but a look 
of heroic endurance and stoical resignation. But 
enough of frogs ; let us talk about 

FISHING. 

Your hook is nicely baited, the boat rocks gently 
on the waters beside the sheltered shore, and you 
are waiting for a bite. In the interval of expecta- 
tion you descant on the lovely qualities of your frog, 
and wonder that sensible fish can resist an induce- 
ment so tempting. Soon you feel the snap of the 
line and the tremor of the pole, and your strength 
doubled by excitement; you tug till a row of black 
spears shows above the water. Then how he strug- 
gles ! careening on one broad side and then on the 
other, till at last you bring him in "out of the wet." 
A pretty good bass ! About five pounds ! Another 
interval of suspense. By and by you feel a " symp- 
tom;" — a moment of eager interest — it is a bite! 
the line moves slowly against the wind — you know 
your style, and, rising to your feet, give him line — 
now you draw — gods ! he is hooked ! What a 
moment of ecstacy ! — how the supple, pliant pole 
bends under the pressure ! — now his white belly 
gleams in the water as he comes slowly up — the 
devil ! — you have slackened line a little — the strug- 
gling fish has turned his head from you, and 
whi-z-z-z-z-z goes your line around the bow of the 
boat — you drop the pole and, seizing the line, draw 
in, hand over hand, with eager speed — he is safely 
hooked, and, cavernous mouth wide open, he comes 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. I29 

in out of the drink. You leisurely fix your bait, 
take a fresh chew of tobacco, ask the fellow next 
you if he saw how you did it, and toss out again. 

AN INCIDENT. 

A pleasing incident occurred one day which is 
worth narrating. As the bateau was drifting lei- 
surely along, we discovered, on the opposite shore, a 
wannegan or punt, containing two ladies. Shade of 
Venus ! Here was a schoolma'am! White dress and 
blue basque on Bear Trap! What an illustration 
of the aggressive power of common schools ! The 
school house and the Indian camp within sight of 
each other ! I never before so realized the pictur- 
esqueness of border life as when I saw the advancing 
pickets of education, with all its attendant amenities 
and arts, thus challenging the retreating sentinels of 
savage life. The position is one to be proud of. 
Boys, pass the glasses. Let us drink to the health 
of the maid on Bear Trap — to the peace of the 
schoolma'ams who basted us in our boyhood — to 
the success of the common school — to the glory of 
American institutions generally 1 

Dewdrops come in silence and in the night. We 
sometimes think they are tears which the watching 
angels in pity shed over human sorrow or sin. 

Fun is cousin to Common Sense. They live 
pleasantly together, and none but fools try to divorce 
them. 

9 



130 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

A HUMAN RUIN. 

Any ruin is sad ; a human ruin is saddest of all. 
Whoever or whatever struggles for life and sinks 
down battling bravely until engulfed by utter ruin, 
moves our profoundest sympathy. The plant, 
scorched beyond endurance by summer heats and 
slowly yielding up its feeble life, touches our sym- 
pathy as if it were a sentient thing. The foundered 
ship, struggling in tumultuous billows or breaking 
against rocky shores, whose staunch timbers and 
strong planks maintain to the last the ineffectual 
struggle with wind and wave, seems to us to be ani- 
mated by a human spirit, and its destruction calls 
out a sorrow as if it were a human being, with love 
of life and strength of will. The consumptive per- 
son, in whom the citadel of life has already been 
taken by insidious disease, and whose strong will 
matches itself against death, and resolutely scorns 
to own defeat, though fading color tells of fading 
strength, calls out a sympathy painful in its intensity 

— a sympathy intensified by our yearning desire to 
aid the sufferer in the unequal struggle, and our 
utter inability to give effectual help. 

Such wreck of health — such ruin of womanly 
beauty or manly strength — moves us to grief and 
saddens us with tears ; but deeper, darker, more pro- 
foundly miserable and utterly desolate is the specta- 
cle of a strong man yielding to the mastery of drink 

— the gradual loss of self-respect, the decay of the 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 13I 

moral sentiments, the growing paralysis of the will ; 
until at last, utterly indifferent or defiantly reckless, 
he staggers through the dark door of death, with dis- 
grace behind him and retribution before. 

Not with one wild leap does any man go down 
this fearful abyss of sin and shame. The end is 
reached only after innumerable resolutions have 
been made and broken. It is a retreat in which 
the victim makes many a brave effort to withstand 
the demon who is pushing him on, and when at last 
disarmed of noble purpose, without the will to resist, 
or the ability to comprehend his disgrace, he sinks 
into utter and irremediable sottishness, and drifts 
almost unconsciously to his doom, it is the saddest 
sight in the whole universe of God. 



A POEM. 

[Extract from a poem read at a festival of the Franklin Club, River 
Falls, Wisconsin, in 1858.] 

The soul that lives must daily grow ; 
Like Noah's dove, its thoughts will go 
Out wandering, intent to know. 

We live to learn — we live to glean 
Some truth from every shifting scene, 
And Winter's snow, and Summer's green. 

And play of light, and song of birds. 
And waving grain, and feeding herds. 
And sweetest melodies of words. 



132 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

And girlhood's laughter, ringing clear. 

And sorrow's sob and pity's tear. 

And dead friends — cold upon the bier, — 

All things that soul or sense has caught, v 
With meanings rich and deep are fraught. 
And furnish food for constant thought. 

We open books, by use grown dear. 
And the long centuries disappear. 
As the far Past seems pressing near. 

The beauteous queens of high romance, 
Turn on us their impassioned glance. 
And leave us in a willing trance. 

The martyrs, sages, heroes old. 

Whom love of truth or fame made bold, 

Gleam on us from sepulchral mold ; 

And poets of the bygone days 
\ Seem ever rising from their graves 

To charm us with melodious lays. 
******** 
Then give us truth that shuns no light. 
While thought and toil their power unite 
To clothe the soul with conquering might. 

Thus, wisely living, day by day. 

Our minds shall broaden, and our fancies may 

Have wider scope and freer play. 

Take hold of Nature's perfect plan, 
And rightly estimate and scan 
The life-work of an earnest man. 

And, rising from this earthly sod. 
Tread the bright path by sages trod, 
Whose goal is only found in God. 



133 



A DISCURSIVE EPISTLE. 

[Extracts from a letter to Frank Daggett.] 

Indianapolis, Ind., July 7, 1868. 
My Dear Boy : 

How does your robust form feel generally, with 
the thermometer indicating 98 degrees in the shade ? 
Are you playful and happy as usual, or does the 
exuberance of life v/hich generally distils from your 
speech and pen now exude at every pore, and leave 
you as uninteresting as common mortals ? An early 
answer is requested. 

But, seriously, the weather is very warm. I en- 
joy a continual bath in the perspiration of my own 
body, the only annoyance being that linen must be 
changed each twenty minutes in order to present a 
comely appearance. Now, twenty minutes is hardly 
long enough for a chambermaid to do the work of a 
room, and the maid who has charge of room 104, 
Bates House, in this goodly prairie city, is no excep- 
tion to the rule. I have interrupted her while pursu- 
ing her ordinary avocations, and, when reprimanded, 
have boldly told her that a dry shirt I would have 
in spite of all the chambermaids in the house. If 
she had not been a charitable girl, and my face had 
not been a displayed advertisement of honest inten- 
tions, I fear I should have been reported at the office 
and persuaded to leave the house before the train 
left which I am going on. 



134 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

But, to be serious, Frank, how do thin fellows get 
along this weather? You and I have generous 
frames through which to distribute the heat, and a 
broad surface from which to pass it off — but those 
thin, hatchet-faced, narrow-chested, slim-bodied, 
light-legged fellows, why, they must feel like a coal 
in a blacksmith's forge, like a bit of burned steak, 
or a muffin overdone. 

How did you spend "The Fourth," my boy.? I 
was in Chicago, and made up my mind that that 
city is more patriotic than pious. Never on a Sun- 
day have I seen it so completely deserted as on the 
afternoon of the Fourth. The business houses were 
closed, the streets were empty and still, the people 
trying to keep cool indoors, or away in God's green 
temples — the shadowy groves. 

But in the evening the streets were thronged with 
people in holiday attire, and the night glowed and 
shone and sparkled with all manner of fireworks, 
from the great lurid fires glowing fearfully against 
the sky, to the solitary rocket, which, speeding like 
a bullet, into the darkness above, falls back wasted 
— like a human soul which, having plumed its wing 
to mount to heaven and search out the mysteries of 
the Iiifinite^ returns weary, baffled, and worn from 
its fruitless toil. I could not persuade myself to go 
inside the heated walls of the theater, and so I wan- 
dered idly about the city, viewing its splendor and 
its squalor, its wealth and its want — past the marble 
temples of trade — past the palatial residences of 
the rich, past the cozy, comfortable homes, out into 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 13^ 

the suburbs — where in hot, close, crowded, fester- 
ing tenement houses, women and little children 
breathe an air that is poison and live a life that is 
death — where gaunt poverty and grim despair form 
a fellowship of misery, and from their loathsome 
union is born crime, with its glaring visage and heart 
of hell. 

Give me the mountain and the prairie, the river and 
the wood, the voice of passing winds, the sight of 
growing things, the scent of flowers and the song of 
birds — give me God's green earth, for I like it better 
than the places man has built. I believe a life which 
brings one into daily contact with the substratum of 
a city populace tends to make him a materialist — 
learns him to look at people as only another form of 
animals, who live their brief life, perform their little 
labor, and pass into the nothingness from which they 
came. Philosophy and religion teach that a single 
soul, an isolated human life, is priceless, outweighing 
in value all material wealth ; and yet, when we look 
at the ignorant, unthinking, vicious, degraded and 
damnable mob which swells the census of the cities, 
it is almost impossible to believe that the Son of God 
died for such, that gems of value are hidden in such 
worthless caskets, or that a future better than the 
present can ever dawn upon them. Yet it will not do 
to cast away faith in the loving paternity of God. 

" How would it make the weight and wonder less 
If, lifted from immortal shoulders down. 
The world were cast on seas of emptiness, 
'Mid realms without a crown." 



t;^6 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

I am a serious lad, my boy, and, riding much on 
the cars lately, I have thought how much the trip 
on a train is like the journey of life. The incoming 
passengers, who burst in upon us at the way-stations, 
are the births which keep full the stream of life; 
while those who depart are quickly lost to sight and 
thought, as we shall be when we step off into the 
darkness which envelops all the world. The engine 
represents the human passions, which are the motive 
power of life ; the engineer is law, which guides and 
controls ; the brakemen are the magistrates and offi- 
cers who watch over and protect our persons and 
property, and the conductor is the parson, who di- 
rects us on the journey and acquaints us with our 
destination. To finish the similitude, many go wrong 
in life, and many go wrong on the train. 

With almost unimagined speed the world rolls 
along its measured track among the stars. Soon 
our station will be reached. We shall step off into 
eternal silence, and invisible Charon will ferry us 
over the Stygian wave. There is no baggage-master 
on that craft, my boy. Our checks must be surren- 
dered before our spirit feet shall tread its ghostly 
deck, and so do not encumber yourself on the jour- 
ney with things that must be left behind at its close. 
Thus, like many another, covering my own deficien- 
cies with a word of admonition to 'a friend, I am 

Yours fraternally. 

Will and work are higher trumps than genius 
and luck, in the game of life. 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 137 



FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 

[The following short extracts are from a Fourth of July 
oration delivered at Winona, Minnesota, in 1872.] 

* * * It is a matter for congratulation that 
our fathers chose this particular season of the year 
for the enunciation of their Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. Longest days, midway between seed- 
time and harvest. On each side the months slope 
down. All the luxuriance, the superb and sensuous 
beauty of nature greets us now, and contributes to 
our rejoicing. 

* * * We may as well understand the fact 
that the old-fashioned Fourth of July has passed 
away, never to return again. It belongs to history. 
It is as much a part of the past as the battle of 
Brandywine, or the surrender of Burgoyne. Twelve 
years ago there was an awe in the sight of a cannon, 
a glory in the waving of a flag or the beating of a 
drum, and a novelty in the appearance of a regiment 
in arms. There was a charm of remoteness about 
these things. They moved before us as the actors 
move in a play. Since then they have become sadly 
but proudly familiar. The gaudy show has been 
made a stern reality. The cannor^ have thundered 
the menace of death ; the drums have beat the sol- 
emn death-march ; the gay banners have been torn 
by hissing balls, and the brave regiments have swept 
in shattered columns over fields that were lost. We 



t^S LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

cannot now invest the Fourth of July with its ancient 
reverence. We have handled the sacred things until 
they have become common and familiar. The heroes 
of the Revolution do not loom so grandly before our 
mental vision, for we find their living peers and equals 
wherever we turn. 

As the advent of the Christian dispensation broad- 
ened the old, local, Jewish Sabbath into a universal 
day of worship, recreation and rest, so has the logic 
of events broadened this Fourth of July, which at 
first commemorated only the successful revolt of a 
few colonies, into a festal day of freedom, and made 
the very words a menace to oppression and an inspi- 
ration and hope to the oppressed. 

The' Fourth of July is the Nation's birthday, and 
it has probably occurred to all of you that the im- 
portance of a birthday is greatly in proportion to 
the age of the individual. It is a great event when 
the babe has completed its first twelve months of 
existence. The youth who has not attained his 
majority, thinks the years creep along with snail-like 
pace, and looks forward to his birthdays with never- 
failing interest , but to the man immersed in business 
they pass by almost unheeded; while the dimmed 
vision of the aged hardly discovers them, as the 
crowded, shortened years flit by. 

What the year^ are to the man the centuries are 
to the world, and we have not yet passed the first 
century mile-stone on the journey of national life. 
It is only by comparison that we can appreciate how 
young, as a nation, we are. Away to the north, on 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 139 

the banks of Lake St. Croix, lives a man* who is 
older than the Fourth of July. His step is still 
reasonably firm ; the light from his eye still gleams 
out from beneath the thin lashes which shade it; 
his memory is still tenacious; his enjoyment of the 
society of friends is, fresh and keen; yet he is ten 
years older than the Fourth of July — was born ten 
years before the Declaration of Independence was 
signed — ten years before "The Fourth" was taken 
out from among other days, glorified, and made for- 
ever memorable. This man voted for Washington 
for the Presidency, and, holding him by the hand, 
looking into his wrinkled face, listening to his voice, 
you feel how young this country is. Four generations 
like him would reach back and clasp hands with 
that first emigrant to the western world — Christo- 
pher Columbus. 

I sometimes think we do not give sufficient honor 
to Columbus. It is true that he was spared many 
things which fall to the lot of later emigrants. He 
had to " declare his intention " to the natives, but 
he did not take out his naturalization papers; was 
not implored to go to caucuses, or join a campaign 
club; he never ran for office and was beat, nor 
hurrahed over favorable election returns, nor lost 
his money on an unsuccessful candidate, nor was on 
the finance committee of a Fourth of July celebra- 
tion. But though spared all this, his honors do not 
match his merit. 

Looking back at him through the misty years, he 

* David Stiles, who died in 1873, at the age of 107. 



140 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

seems to us more like one of the demigods of myth- 
ology than like an actual living man — a hero of 
history. The world has never witnessed a sublimer 
spectacle, a grander pilgrimage, than that of this 
wonderful man, this princely vagrant and royal 
beggar, burdened with ideas too large for the world's 
acceptance, wandering from court to court with his 
visionary, ridiculous and absurd ideas of a new 
world, and begging for the means to enable him to 
find it, until at last a fooHsh queen gave him the 
necessary aid, and, with a fearful and superstitious 
crew, he started on the long voyage across the va- 
cant ocean. The vacant ocean ! Just think of it ! 
Now it is white with the sails of every craft, from 
the shapely yacht to the stately ship, while the great 
steamers, with clouds of smoke trailing like black 
pennons in their rear, shoot from the shore of one 
continent to the shorer of another, as a weaver's 
shuttle flies across his loom. But then all was va- 
cant ; the sun rode out of the wide waste of waters, 
swung over the broad arch of heaven, and dipped 
again in the boundless blue, and looked upon no 
living human thing. The storms stirred the great 
ocean into thunderous tumult, but no human ear 
listened to the grand diapason of the sea; no eye 
saw its climbing billows and yawning depths; no 
heart shuddered at its threatening peril. The sea- 
birds skimmed its surface, the fishes sported in its 
waters, the great tides rose and fell, the sunlight 
slept upon its broad expanse; but all was vacant, 
unused and unknown. 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 141 

So, too, this great continent was a wilderness, 
ripening for future use, where human life was savage, 
and all which we deem desirable was unknown. 

* * * But let the procession of years pass by 
until you come down within the memory of living 
men, and even this vast west was a solitude, unpeo- 
pled, save by wild beasts and men scarcely less wild 
than they. The rivers flowed unvexed by the fret- 
ting wheels of commerce. On the broad prairies 
the flowers bloomed and died, with none to note 
their beauty; and the luxuriant grasses ripened in 
summer airs, rotted and enriched a soil on which 
no harvest waved. The forest trees, untouched by 
deadly ax, grew old and died, and their successors 
lifted their mighty trunks in air, like towering col- 
umns of great cathedrals, and along their high, 
leaf-woven domes the soft winds rippled, in their 
verdurous arches the birds sang, and from their 
mossy floors flowers sent up their praise in perpet- 
ual fragrance and perfume. 

Now, how changed ! Man has laid his hand upon 
the mighty forces of nature and subjugated them to 
his will. Seeming impossibilities have been realized, 
and the most startling wonders are the every-day 
facts of our lives. Harvests ripen in the fields; 
villages cluster in the valleys ; cities sit queen-like 
beside the lakes and rivers ; mines give up their 
hoarded wealth; spindles turn, and shuttles leap, 
and hammers thunder in mills and manufactories; 
the steamers come and go ; the rushing trains sweep 
across broad States, making far-sundered people 



142 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

near and familiar ; the lightning leaps responsive to 
our touch, and becomes a swift, invisible messenger, 
conveying our words with the rapidity of thought 
itself; while, better than all, school-houses dot all 
the land, and, from every hillside and in every 
valley, church spires point to heaven. Distance is 
annihilated, time is stayed, opportunities are en- 
larged. During the past year mail service has been 
put by this government on 8,000 miles of newly 
constructed railway, and nearly 12,000 miles have 
been built. 

But^ great as have been the triumphs of labor and 
the growth of material interests, greater still have 
been the triumph of moral forces and the growth of 
ideas. The ideas of the fathers of the Republic 
have become living facts ; their theories have crys- 
tallized into laws. Freedom no longer sits in sorrow, 
weeping over the atrocities committed in her name, 
but, throned in regal state, wielding the sceptre of 
law and armed with the word of power, her will is 
imperative and her dictum obeyed. 

Everywhere progress has been made. Thought 
has been quickened, aspirations elevated, philosophy 
broadened, theology liberalized, and life enlarged. 
We have to-day all the conditions of free and pros- 
perous national life. 

The question of moment to us is, how shall we 
preserve these conditions for ourselves, and transmit 
them to those who come after us ? In schools is our 
safety, is the almost universal response. I know the 
great value of schools ; I would multiply their num- 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 143 

ber, improve their character, and increase their 
efficacy. Politically speaking, there is virtue in a 
spelling-book, and the multiplication table is a means 
of grace. Yet, we must remember, that educated 
villainy is more dangerous than honest ignorance. 
The men who plotted the last great treason against 
the country were men of learning, polished in the 
arts which schools impart, and armed with the 
strength which they give. Many of them had been 
wards of the nation, trained in her schools, and 
honored in her service, yet they basely stung the 
hand that had blessed them, and stabbed at the life 
of their benefactor. 

More men fail from want of character than from 
want of intellect. It is the vices outside of law 
which are sapping our national life. Personal ex- 
travagance and love of show and effect drive thou- 
sands delirious with care. Licentiousness blasts the 
beauty of social life, and blights soul and body with 
the mildew of hell. Intemperance seizes its victims 
and drags them from comfort and respectability to 
poverty and the degradation of loaferdom, and then 
sends them groping through dark delirium to the 
doors of death. 

We fear no foreign foe. Our danger is from our- 
selves. It lies in the evils I have pointed out; it 
lies even more in the multiplicity of offices and the 
mad ambition to hold them ; it lies in that unhal- 
lowed avarice which uses official position for the 
purpose of personal gain ; in the decay of that nice 



144 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

sense of honor which fears the commission of wrong 
more than its exposure. 

****** 

I am free to confess that I devoutly believe there 
is sufficient virtue in the country to insure a pros- 
perous and healthy national life. I see a future 
stretching out before us radiant with promise and 
rich in ev^ry possible blessing. I believe God has 
a great work for this nation to do; that here the 
problem of government by the people is to be 
wrought out, and that in his providence we are des- 
tined to be a teacher and an exemplar to the nations 
of the earth. 

We, Mr. President, may not live to see the full 
fruition of our hopes, but those who come after us 
will find here a government strong in the affections 
of the people — a land where freedom shall reign, 
where law shall issue its unbought edicts, where 
Justice shall hold her scales with steady hand, where 
Honor shall lift her unstained brow ; a land which 
shall be the realization of the patriot's hope and the 
Christian's prayer; a land where the flag shall be 
the symbol of freedom, as the cross is the sign of 
faith, and whose benign influences, flowing forth to 
farthest limits, shall make the Fourth of July a 
sacramental day to all peoples in all lands. 

Epitaphs are like circus bills — there is more in 
the bill than is ever performed. 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. I45 



CHAMBER SCENE. 

Slowly the darkness rolled away. 
Folded back by the fingers of day, 
As in sweet sleep the maiden lay. 

The rarest beauty was her dower ; 
She slept, unconscious of its power. 
As fair as Eve in her Eden bower. 

The fringed lids were closed above 

Dark hazel eyes, brimful of love, 

Which might have moved Olympian Jove. 

The pillows swelled on either side 
Her rosy cheeks, as if to hide 
Her beauty, but in vain they tried. 

Her warm breath with her tresses played. 
Which, all unkempt, around her strayed. 
While one fair hand uncovered laid. 

The snow-white coverlet rose and fell 
Responsive to her bosom's swell, 
And mimicked every motion well. 

Now birds their morning music made — 
'Mid light and song awoke the maid ; 
She rose, and robed herself, and prayed. 

Then rising reverent from her knees. 
Unclasped the shutters, and the breeze. 
That sported with the flowers and trees. 

Came coyly in and kissed the maid, 
And lightly with those tresses played. 
That hung so stilly while she prayed. 



146 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

Oh, she did seem surpassing fair. 
And every breath of morning air 
Was hallowed by her whispered prayer. 

Thank God that not in heaven alone 
Are pure and loving spirits known ! 
E'en here they bow before his throne. 

And many a wild and wayward one, 
Who else in erring paths had run, 
By such pure souls to heaven is won. 



ALL'S RIGHT. 

[Flagmen were stationed at every road crossing, and every half-mile, 
showing the American flag — a signal that all was right. — Extract from 
an account 0/ Lincoln s journey to Washington.'] 

Look, where the faithful sentries stand. 

Beside the level bars. 
Each bearing in his trusty hand 

Our banner's stripes and stars. 

The nation's chief doth ride to-day. 

Her hope is passing there ; 
And love encircles all the way 

With keen and watchful care. 

As eager eyes run o'er the track. 

The stars gleam on the sight ; 
Each signal star is flashing back 

The welcome, " All is right !" 

"All's right!" where shine those sacred stars 

Our chieftain's safety's sure ; 
And when his hand that banner bears. 

All's Right ! " — it is secure. 



n 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. I47 

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT STAM- 
MERING. 

[From a letter to the Milwaukee "Sentinel."] 

The success of Mr. Greeley, in writing a book on 
what he knows about farming, has emboldened me 
to write a newspaper article on what I know about 
stammering. I am confident that I am much better 
informed on my subject than Mr. Greeley upon his, 
for he has entirely failed in his efforts to raise dried 
apples from the seed, while I have never failed, when 
called upon, to stammer to the satisfaction of private 
friends or public assemblies. Sometimes it has re- 
quired extra exertion for me to fill the measure of 
expectation, and give as great an amount of English, 
disjointed in a different manner from that in which 
Webster or Worcester disjoints it, as was expected 
of me in a given time, yet I have never failed to 
meet a reasonable demand. 

[N. B. — I will qualify that statement by admit- 
ting that, sometimes, at political meetings, when the 
Democrats called me out in preference to other 
Republicans, because they thought I would say less 
against them than anyone else, I have surprised 
them by dropping the customary repetition of my 
pronunciation, and made all the counts against them 
possible in the time given me.] 

Stammering is an art which but comparatively 
few people possess. I am the more surprised at 



148 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

this, because it can be acquired without interfering 
with any regular business, and, usually, practice will 
make one perfect. I have known young boys who 
were very strong stammerers indeed, and young men, 
who have been with me, by strict attention and using 
all their spare time, have made very creditable pro- 
gress, and in a few weeks compelled me to check 
them, lest they should become my equals or supe- 
riors in the art. 

Its advantages may not be apparent at first, but 
they will be admitted when attention is directed to 
them. 

First. — It gives one prominence, singularity, no- 
toriety, or whatever name you choose to call it by, 
and everyone likes to be • prominent, separate and 
distinct from his fellows. Who does not remember 
some stupid play-fellow of his boyhood who stam- 
mered, and who is remembered for that fact, and 
that alone ? But for this he would have been rubbed 
out of your memory, as a sum is rubbed off from 
the blackboard ; but now he sticks, as the gashes in 
that board, cut by stony seams in the chalk, stick. 
An unregenerate Democratic editor, heated by par- 
tisan prejudice, once said that stuttering gave me 
all the little notoriety and small consequent influence 
which I possessed. I reflected upon the remark, and^ 
was suprised to see how truthful it was, considering^ 
the unreliable source from which it came. 

Second. — Stammering excuses people from many' 
things. When I was a schoolboy, and became hope- 
lessly lost in the conjugation of the Greek verb 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 149 

tupto^ a severe contraction of the face, a judicious 
movement of the under jaw, and a sort of appealing 
look in the eyes, as if I knew but could not tell, 
would cause even the stern old professor to bend 
on me a look of sympathy and regret, and nod to 
the next to finish my exercise, so that, without know- 
ing anything, especially about my text-books, I was 
always marked high on examination days. This 
was a great advantage to me, and gave me that lei- 
sure for outdoor exercise which young students so 
much need. In the autumn it also enabled me to 
make great progress in the study of pomology in 
the many orchards in the country adjacent, and 
fellow-students became fond of me, and loved to 
frequent my room. It is a noble thing to have one's 
fellows fond of him. 

In the spring of 1853 I was attending school in 
North Bridgewater, Mass. Returning home from 
Abington on foot one afternoon, I met a man, who 
stopped me to inquire the way to the town from 
which I had just come. The fellow stammered fear- 
fully. I began to laugh at first, then, divining his 
wish, started to give him the desired information, 
and began to stammer myself. 

" D — n you, do-nt you m-m-moc-mock me." 

"I ai-n't m-moc-mo-mocking you." 

The oath was repeated, and his brawny fist was 
shook so close to my eyes that I could not see be- 
yond it very well, and his face fairly flamed with 
rage. He was a horny-handed delegate, a good deal 
larger than I was, and I resorted to diplomacy instead 



150 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

of war. I finally convinced him of my integrity, 
and we sat down by the roadside and had as com- 
fortable a social time as Artemus Ward's mother 
and Betsey Jane's mother used to have boiling soap 
together. 

In the summer of 1857 I was publishing the "Jour- 
nal " at River Falls in this State, and then, and for 
some years after, there was in that town a delegation 
of as active and reliable stammerers as I have ever 
known. There were five of us. First, there was 
Wm. J. McMasters, then foreman of the "Journal," 
now one of the editors and proprietors of the Lake 
City (Minn.) " Leader," and then, as now, one of 
the purest, kindliest and best men whom I have ever 
known. Mac did not seem to like to stammer. 
There was an apologetic air about his performance, 
as if asking pardon for annoying his hearers. Mac 
was the best foreman I ever had, because it was 
known that the editor stammered ; and whenever I 
was away, and Mac was in charge, he could fill the 
whole bill. Then there was Mr. D. H. Levings, 
now resident there. I have known him from boy- 
hood, and have no hesitation in vouching for him as 
a " star " stammerer. In conversation he works 
everything about his face but his voice, and does 
everything but talk. He has a wonderful facility 
of distorting his features while wrestling with words, 
and is a perfect success as what the theatre people 
call a "muggist." He looks mad when stammering, 
but he is not. It is his way. Mr. Henry K. White 
was also a very competent and steady stammerer. 



I 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 151 

He put less emotion into the business than the 
others, but he was more even and reliable, and 
could always be depended on to work very hard 
in order to say a very little. 

Many amusing incidents occurred among us, but 
I will relate but one. 

In 1859 Mr. Levings was director of the school 
district, and I was clerk. One day in the early 
autumn, when I was particularly busy in my office, 
a young man named George W. Witherell came to 
me and wished to engage to teach the school during 
the coming winter. I did not like his appearance, 
and had no idea of hiring him, and so told him he 
had better see the director. He asked me to accom- 
pany him, but I excused myself on account of my 
urgent business. He persisted in his request, until 
I was fairly obliged to comply, and, in no very good 
humor, I started with him for Mr. Levings' house, 
about one-third of a mile distant. I had been show- 
ing him some of my best specimens of stammering, 
and, when near the house, I remarked that he might 
have observed that I had a hesitation in my speech. 
He said he had observed it. I told him I was 
afflicted that way, but Mr. Levings was a very rapid 
talker, and between us we averaged good time. We 
found him painting his house; he came down the 
ladder, and I introduced him, making fearful work 
of the job. 

"Mr. Le-Le-Levings, 1-let me ac-ac-ac — let me 
ac-acquaint you with Mr. W-Wi-With — with Mr. 
With-With-Witherell." 



15 2 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

Levings looked at him, then looked at me, and 
began : 

" Wh-wh-wh-z£//^(3;/ na-a-a-ame did you sa-a-a-ay?" 

He wrestled fearfully with that first word " what." 
The contortions of his face were frightful to With- 
erell and amusing to me. Mr. Witherell did not get 
the school. I think he was resigned ; I don't think 
he wanted it very much after we had stopped talk- 
ing to him ; but I had my revenge on him for taking 
me from my work. 

For myself, within the year past, the habit of 
stammering has nearly forsaken me. I have taken 
no special pains to secure this result, and hardly 
know whether to rejoice at it or not. I shall try to 
retain enough of the habit to " sample " it when de- 
sired, though I should not indulge in its habitual 
use. 

The years work their slow but certain changes, 
and man ripens for the grave as leaves and fruit do 
for their fall. The weakest leaves fall first, and it 
may be that this habit, the least essential of what is 
personal to myself, is thus the first to pass away — 
the first indication of that coming change, which, in 
God's own time, will bear us all over to that other 
life where no stammering tongues are found, but 
where language is music, life is thought, and law is 
love. 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 153 



THE NEWSPAPER. * 

[Extracts from an address delivered before the Convention 
of the Minnesota Editors and Publishers' Association, held 
at St. Paul, June 4, 1870,] 

There are some things from which the freshness 
never fades away — out of which the wonder never 
dies. Day by day we may stand beside a telegraph 
operator, but the mystery of his performance never 
becomes clear, and the sensation of surprise is always 
fresh and keen. 

Just so the newspaper is a constantly recurring 
miracle whose wonder never wears away. Whether 
lying carefully folded in the office, or invitingly open 
upon the table ; whether wrapping cheese and cod- 
fish, or thrown discarded into the street to scare 
horses and be trampled on, it is always invested 
with a strange kind of awe. 

The newspaper! Look at it. It seems empty 
and vacant, perhaps. " Nothing in the paper," you 
say; yet read, and you will find it an open letter 
from very many people whom you have never known. 

One offers you this commodity, and another that ; 
one happy man sends you notice of his wedding, 
another sorrowfully informs you of a death. Look 
over its contents closely — its news items, its list of 
accidents, of fires, of crimes — see how sudden 
wealth has surprised some, and sudden poverty sad- 
dened others. Is it in war time.** — look at the list 
of killed and wounded ; see who has been promoted 



154 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

and who disgraced; take into your mind the import 
of the (^nsequence of all these things, and you will 
find that you hold in your hand " the ends of myriad 
invisible, electric conductors along which tremble 
the joys, sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, hopes and de- 
spairs of as many men and women," all as sensitive 
to pleasure or pain as yourself. 

Here you have the lore of the scholar and the 
wisdom of the sage. Here the divine preaches, the 
poet sings, and the partisan lies. Here the states- 
man proclaims his principles and the auctioneer 
offers his wares. Here the Cardiff giant and Minnie 
Warren are put side by side, and one is as long as 
the other. Here is the result of the antiquarian's 
research, and through the very next column throbs 
a truthful tale of present love, passion and romance. 
Here the Old and the New are brought into con- 
trast. Here 

" Tradition, snowy-bearded, leans 
On Romance, ever young." 

This is but a feeble portrayal of what a newspaper 
is ; let us now see how it is made. 

Come with me to the office. We will pass that 
pile of paper. Yet, stop ; pick up a sheet of it. We 
cannot wait to explain the curious process of its 
manufacture, yet that clean and spotless sheet is the 
purified product of rags and filth. The fibre which 
forms its texture may have been stripped from Egyp- 
tian mummies ; it may have come from city streets, 
or froni great garrets in country homes ; it may have 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 155 

wrapped the luxurious form of beauty, or been the 
scanty covering of want ; but whether from the robes 
of a queen or the rags of a harlot, it gives no clue 
now to its former condition. Like a sanctified soul, 
it is ready for a new life. 

We will pass the editorial room. Its occupants 
are busy. There are papers from far and near ; let- 
ters from widely scattered correspondents ; telegraph 
dispatches, intelligence in every form ; and from this 
mass is to be selected what is of most interest and 
importance, to make a paper to-day. Let the editors 
work. 

Come into the composing room. We have the 
foreman's permission — grudgingly given. Do you 
hear it.? ''Click! click! click T What is that.? Why, 
that is the music Progress marches to. Come here, 
to this " case." Look at that multitude of little 
boxes, filled with pieces of metal. What are they .? 
They are the civilizers — they are the Types. * * 

But the paper is being made. The types, one by 
one, have been picked up by nimble fingers, and 
placed in proper position. Every error has been 
corrected. Every punctuation point is in its place. 
The scattered " columns " are massed together ; the 
"form," or page, is securely "locked up," and sent 
to the press room. 

Let us go there. Here is where the wondrous 
transformation is wrought ; here matter becomes the 
exponent of mind. The " forms" are properly placed. 
The great press slowly moves; its arms are reaching 
for their strong embrace. 



156 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

" Stop the press ! " 

The giant rests again. There is an error of state- 
ment to be corrected, or an objectionable article to 
be withdrawn. The types are taken out and borne 
away — corpses of a dead thought. 

Look now, again, at that mass of type — dead ! inert 
as the earth you tread on. But see, the white sheet 
has fallen upon their upturned faces — the touch of 
the Press has baptized them — the life that was in 
them has passed upon paper, and the new creation 
is pregnant with thought ; a thing with a soul, for it 
can move the souls of men. That sheet, so blank be- 
fore, is a living power now. A change has passed 
over it, as marvelous as if, in an instant, the unwrit- 
ten face of the boy should put on the furrows of age, 
the lines of care, the impress of manhood's experi- 
ence, thought and toil. 

Thus the paper is born, and goes out into the 
world. No messenger can overtake it. Its utterance 
is unalterable now. It may be explained, but not 
erased. The printed word can no more be recalled 
than the departed spirit can be wooed back to the 
cold body which it has left. 

Here, now, we have it — the newspaper ! Wonder- 
ful product of brain and toil ! One would think it 
should be dearly bought and highly prized; and yet 
it is the cheapest thing in the world. Five cents will 
buy it. One or two dollars will bring it to your 
home every week in the year. And yet, strange to 
say, there are men "too poor to take a newspaper!" 
They can pay five cents for a glass of beer, or fifteen 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 157 

cents for a beverage of unknown composition, called 
a "cocktail;" they can pay fifty cents for a circus 
ticket, or a dollar for the theatre, yet they are too 
poor to buy a newspaper ! — a newspaper, which is a 
ticket of admission to that great Globe Theatre, 
whose dramas are written by God himself, " whose 
scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtains are rung 
down by Death ! " * * * * 

If there is one lesson which life teaches more 
plainly than any other, it is the subordination of 
individual to general interest. Humanity is large ; 
a single life, even the largest, is small. Engrossed 
with our daily duties, pressed by cares, and weighed 
down by exacting obligations, we often fancy that 
our life and labor is a very necessary and important 
thing. Yet a little reflection will show us that the 
world easily adjusts itself to its losses and life whirls 
on the rapid eddies and rushes in strong currents, 
and the express wagon jostling against the hearse, 
the black plumes threading the gay and busy crowd, 
who scarcely note their passage, or think that soon 
the same offices must be performed for them. 

The sea smiles no less brightly in the sunlight 
because a dark and ghastly wreck lies hidden be- 
neath its shining surface, and so the smile of life is 
scarcely saddened, or its hues robbed of their bright- 
ness, because of the awful shadow of death, which 
is its constant attendant. Humanity is large ; indi- 
vidual life is small. 



158 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

A Brilliant Wedding. — Such is the caption of 
the article before us ; and then there is a description 
of the attire and ap.pearance of the bride, as minute 
in regard to her "points," as an article in Wilkes' 
Spirit^ about the "points" of a favorite of the turf; 
and a list of the bridesmaids is given, and how they 
were dressed ; and the trappings of the altar, and the 
dignified grace of the clergyman, the brilliant music, 
and the flowers, and the delighted and distinguished 

guests, and the ; yes, there was a bridegroom; and 

perhaps he loved his wife ; and possibly, in spite of 
all this glare and glitter, she loves him. We hope so. 

We read of such weddings often — or rather, we 
see the announcements and omit the reading. And 
as we see them we wonder — wonder whether love 
thrives best under the glare of such publicity — 
wonder whether the splendor of the ceremony is 
matched by the trustfulness of feeling and the purity 
of heart which alone give to marriage vows their 
sacredness, and assure a future of ever increasing 
love and devotedness. We wonder whether the 
country maiden, whose love grows as the violet does 
— blushing at its own wealth, and shrinking timidly 
from exposure, — whether she is not happier in the 
quiet possession of her great treasure, than are the 
darlings of fortune, whose loves are blazoned to the 
world. Is the quiet contentment of simple life really 
preferable to the splendor of fashion and the show of 
wealth ? Is the rose that blossoms in natural beauty 
sweeter than art's painted flowers .-^ We sometimes 
think so. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 159 



AGRICULTURE. 

[The following is a beautiful, quaint and humorous preface 
to a very practical address delivered at an Agricultural Fair.] 

The Fair is the flowering time of the year. It is 
the Festival of Labor. Here industry exhibits its 
reward, Mechanism displays its triumphs, and Art 
receives her crown. All the long year the wondrous 
alchemy of nature has been patient at its subtle 
work, perfecting the results which we witness now. 
Winter snows have fertilized brown tilth and grassy 
sod; summer suns have led the springing stalk to 
its full stature, and hardened the milky berry into 
golden grain and ripened ear ; Spring has flung out 
her blossoms with prodigal profusion, and Autumn, 
with pride, collects the ripened fruit, grown ruddy 
in Summer's fiery mould. 

This is the season of fruition, and the Fair is a 
large and generous " Harvest Home," where each, 
in an honorable spirit of emulation, competes for 
supremacy in a field where the competition itself is 
of far greater value than the prize bestowed. Here 
is the romance of Labor. The best of the field, the 
first of the flock, the most skillful work of the hands, 
is exhibited here ; and giving an added charm to 
all, is the social intercourse, so general, free and un- 
restricted upon every holiday of this kind. Other 
festivals are local or personal in their significance, 
and narrow in their scope ; this is broad as the ne- 



l6o LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

cessities of man, and appeals to universal human 
nature's daily needs. 

It has been said, in praise of agriculture, that it 
was "the primal occupation of man." According to 
sacred authority, this is true ; but according to the 
same authority, the primal man was not a signal suc- 
cess as an agriculturist. No man ever had a better 
start in the world than Mr. Adam. He inherited an 
estate of unexampled extent ; it was furnished with 
a large variety and number of stock ; his orchard 
was filled with fruit of rare excellence, which had 
not cost him a tithe of the trouble and care which 
our fruit growers experience in bringing their favor- 
ites to perfection ; he had no line fences to keep up ; 
no highway tax to work out ; no shiftless neighbors 
to borrow his tools and neglect to return them ; no 
politics to distract his attention ; no corner grocery 
or club house, to engage his time and capture his 
cash : no speculators to contend against in the way 
of prices; and no Charles Reade to beguile him 
with the " Terrible Temptation " of an exciting and 
worthless romance, — and yet he was not happy. 
His farm was overrun with weeds and thistles, and 
he finally lost his homestead, and was turned out 
bankrupt, to preempt on the barrens — like a "poor 
white " on an exhausted " clearing," in the pine 
woods of the Carolinas. 

Notwithstanding this inauspicious beginning, agri- 
culture rallied from its first disgrace ; the pages of 
history, sacred and profane, are aglow with its praise, 
and poetry has ever found it an inspiring theme. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. i6i 

Following the line of sacred story, we find that 
when Capt. Noah, at the close of a very memorable 
cruise, left the sea, and walked forth upon the puri- 
fied earth, he "began to be an husbandman." He 
seems also to have had the taste of a horticulturist, 
for he " planted him a vineyard," and went into the 
manufacture of wine; and here we grieve to say, 
that like many other men who have since been in 
the same business, he partook too freely of his own 
production. 

Close following after, come the days of the Patri- 
archs ; and the history of the world gives us no pic- 
tures more stately and grand than those of these 
nomadic chiefs, whose wealth was in flocks and 
herds, and whose titles to power were their own 
kingly attributes; nor has language ever told a 
sweeter story than that of royal-born Rebekah fill- 
ing her pitcher at the well, and hastening, with 
gracious hospitality, to press its coolness to the 
stranger's lips. 

All the early history of the world is redolent with 
the flavor of the fields. But, passing over many 
characters which stand out bold and prominent, I 
can merely allude to Prince Joseph, an ingenious 
youth of the royal family of Israel. The pet child of 
a wealthy father, and the envy of less favored breth- 
ren, in his musings in the fields he formed a charac- 
ter whose robust virtue delivered him from the servi- 
tude of Pleasure, and in later life he developed a 
faculty for financiering which enabled him to assist 
his impoverished relatives, and gave him a lasting 



i62 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

fame. He became one of the heaviest com brokers 
on record, and if not a veritable " bull " in the mar- 
ket, he used a remarkable '' corner " greatly to his 
advantage, and like many men in later days, became 
immensely wealthy by means of a government 
contract. 

Farther down the track of time, we find the touch- 
ing tale of the Moabitish damsel, filial Ruth. We 
see her, with modest mien and downcast eye, glean- 
ing the barley stalks ; and mark her pleased surprise 
at the kindness which finds and the love which fol- 
lows her, and we love to remember that this poor, 
dutiful, early widowed harvest girl, who shyly sat 
beside the reapers, and shared their frugal fare, be- 
came the wife of princely Boaz, and the grandmother 
of that great Hebrew bard and king whose songs 
to-day make music in every sanctuary, and melody 
in every Christian heart. 

In a great, tumultuous assembly, when the one man 
whom all are expecting approaches, all tumult ceases, 
all sounds are hushed. So in the still night watches, 
when the hum of traffic and the din of toil has 
ceased, and the weird and wondrous beauty of nature 
sleeps in silence, seen only by the mild moon and the 
sentinel stars, heaven stoops low to earth, and God 
visits the world. Then there is worship in the very 
air. The stones repeat their silent sermons ^ — the 
leafy boughs sway in unwritten melodies, and the 
unvexed waters murmer musically to the shores. 



1 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 163 



A PREFATORY LETTER. 

My Dear Joe : 

This chip-basket is, or it should be, like an easy, 
gossiping letter to a friend. Do not you and every 
one else, often meet with pleasant passages which 
you wish to read to some one, and have quaint fan- 
cies flit across your thought, which you would like 
to imprison in words and write them to a friend ? 
Well, this "Chip-Basket" is a collection of such 
fancies and such passages, and I, in thought, will 
send them to you, for your friendliness for myself 
will blunt the sharp edge of any criticism which 
another might indulge in. And if, occasionally, 
some thought should seem to demand a more elabo- 
rate statement than a " chip " could give room for, I 
can write it down here, and be as garrulous as I 
please. 

And as I write now — the waning hours of the 
week drawing us close to the imaginary line which 
separates secular from sacred time — I think of 
another line, another boundary, which is not imagin- 
ary, but most solemnly real, towards which we are 
ever drawing near. It is the line which separates not 
only two countries, but two states of existence from 
each other, and from beyond which comes back to 
us no friendly greeting from those who have " gone 
before." 

You know, Joe, that the traveler, in passing from 
one country to another, is often met at the boundary 



164 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

line by an officer, who strictly searches all his effects, 
to see that nothing contraband, or forbidden, is 
carried into the country to which he goes. How 
closely are guarded the boundaries of European 
kingdoms and empires ; how the revenue officers 
guard the long line which separates the United 
States from the Dominion of Canada, to see that 
nothing is "smuggled" over; and in the late war, 
how searching the scrutiny and how constant the 
care that nothing " contraband " should pass to the 
hostile lines. The smuggler, the spy, and even the 
incautious traveler, are often loaded with treasures 
they would not carry if they knew they must be sur- 
rendered. Sometimes they pass undetected ; some- 
times the law enforces its penalty. 

But that other boundary line to which I have 
alluded, is guarded with a vigilance that never ceases 
— with a vision that is never dim — an intelligence 
that never errs — a faithfulness that never fails. No 
mistakes are made; no wrongdoer passes unde- 
tected. That sleepless sentinel is the Angel of 
Death. No illusion cheats his eye. All deceit and 
subterfuge and hypocrisy stand revealed before him, 
and the man is simply the man himself. Virtue and 
honor, and love, and truth, and gentle charities, and 
Christian deeds, they are passed by the shadowy 
guard with an approving smile; but the ill-gotten 
gains of an unhallowed life are indignantly wrenched 
away, and their possessor held for impartial trial and 
inexorable doom. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 165 



TOOTH PULLING. 

[The following was an impromptu speech made at a con- 
vention of the State Dental Association of Wisconsin, held in 
La Crosse in 1870:] 

M-MR. P-PRESIDENT AND G-G-GENTLEMEN : 

I have n-noticed in the p-papers that the " tooth 
pullers " of the State were to meet in council here 
at this t-time ; b-but I had no desire for an intro- 
duction to their f-fraternity, and no e-expectation of 
being p-present at any of your s-sessions, until, 
t-through your urgent invitation, M-mr. President, 
and your reassuring terms, by which you quieted 
my nervous a-apprehension, I was induced to come 
in and hear the discussion of t-to-night. My 1-love 
for your profession is not " greater than the love of 
w-woman," and if you, gentlemen, are of the same 
cloth as the d-dentist I first had an i-introduction to 
p-professionally, I should hope you would move a 
speedy and early adjournment, and depart from the 
city ! I was more confiding when I met that d-dent- 
ist than I think I am now. He was one of those 
f-fellows who s-seem to h-have a " roving commis- 
sion " — c-came to the place where I resided, and 
t-took a great deal of interest in me from the start. 
He was a brother uL-mason, too, and secured my 
young affections. He w-wanted to look at my m- 
mouth, and, in a moment of w-weakness, I 1-let him. 
Up to that t-time I thought my m-mouth was all 



i66 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

right — as good a one as I wanted. But he found 
only d-dire disaster there ! One tooth I must let 
him pull, and at once, or ir-irretrievable ruin would 
be the consequence. I h-hesitated — and you know 
what becomes of those who hesitate. He seemed a 
messenger sent just at that time to save my health 
from impending r-ruin. He was, of course, a supe- 
rior d-dentist, for I had it frojn his own lips. 

And then came out the strange instruments, more 
d-diverse in appearance than what Peter saw let 
down in a sheet — and all formed, it seemed, for the 
especial purpose of saving my health from r-ruin. 
He used those instruments. I had a consciousness 
at the time. I th-think he e-explored the nerve, 
and whatever else was in that tooth. And then he 
brought out g-gold, and then he punched it into 
the tooth by the foot and by the yard, until I felt I 
had a bank of deposit on which I could draw for 
almost any "rainy day." 

With bright visions I went to bed that night, but 
not to sleep. There was something worse than his 
instruments gn-gnawing at that tooth. I tried differ- 
ent combinations and m-modifications of these, but 
I c-continued unhappy. In the morning I sought 
my dental friend, but he was not. He had gone on 
his mission to bless humanity in other p-parts. It 
were well thus. 

I have no memorandum detailing exactly what I 
did that day; I d-didn't forget that tooth! In the 
afternoon I anxiously sought the services of a sur- 
geon who p-pulled teeth, and urgently requested him 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 167 

to remove that tooth with or without the head. I 
cannot describe his operation. I know h-he took 
hold of it. I felt him. He p-pulled, and I p-pulled. 
As a man of truth, I would say it didn't hurt, but 
the astronomical observations I m-made at the time 
were varied and extensive. When he got tired of 
pulling, I put up my hand to let him rest. At the 
third t-trial I remember there was a decided change 
in the sensation ; t-there was a deep-seated convul- 
sive effort produced on my system which reminded 
me of m-many I could not recall, and the tooth came 
out ! But I have st-stuttered ever since ! 



TO 



Fair maid, although I dare not hope 

That thou of me art dreaming. 
Although thine eyes may not with love 

On me be fondly beaming ; 
Though I may have no power to wake 

Thy heart with wild emotion. 
Nor hear thy low voice breathe to me 

The vows of deep devotion ; 

Yet loyalty to highest art 

Sees beauty, where'er shining, 
And, with a reverent eye and heart. 

Adores without repining ; 
And so, fair maid, I gaze on thee. 

And deem it no shght blessing 
That I thy winning charms may see. 

Though ne'er dream of possessing. 



i68 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 



HORACE GREELEY. 

To say that Mr. Greeley had faults, is but to 
say that he was human. But whatever they were, 
his almost tragic death is the sublimest expiation 
which a noble soul could make, and has given con- 
vincing proof, if any were needed, of the purity of 
the motives which governed his life. 

Mr. Greeley is equally great whether viewed as a 
journalist or as a man. He lifted journalism to a 
more beneficent position than it had ever occupied 
before. He made the " l" ribune " not only a pur- 
veyor of news and advocate of a party, but a great 
educator and moral force. " His remarkable power, 
when traced back to its main source, will be found 
to have consisted chiefly in that vigorous earnest- 
ness of belief which held him to the strenuous 
advocacy of measures which he thought conducive 
to the public welfare, whether they were temporarily 
popular or not. Journalism may perhaps gain more 
success as a mercantile speculation by other methods; 
but it can be respected as a great moral and political 
force only in the hands of men who have the talents, 
foresight and moral earnestness which fit them to 
guide public opinion. It is in this sense that Mr. 
Greeley was our first journalist, and nobody can 
successfully dispute his rank, any more than Mr. 
Bennett's could be contested in the kind that seeks 
to float on the current instead of directing its course. 
The one did meet to render our American journals 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 169 

great vehicles of news, the other to make them con- 
trolHng organs of opinion." 

To this work he carried all the intense zeal of a 
propagandist. He was resistless in his advocacy of 
principles, although sometimes faulty in his methods 
of securing their fruits. He reached conscience, de- 
stroyed prejudice, and popularized conviction with 
equal success. " His rise from the printing-office to 
the editorial peerage, where he sat crowned and 
glorious in well-won laurels; his spotless private 
worth ; his temperance, simplicity, and candor ; his 
Franklin precepts for young and old; his love for 
his kindred and his friends ; his war against slavery ; 
his fight for exceptionless education and equality; 
his protest against legislative and municipal cor- 
ruption ; and his staunch championship of the rights 
of labor; — these are his titles of nobility, self-se- 
cured, brighter, and more enduring than if conferred 
by a college of kings." 

Now, the man himself comes into view — the real 
Horace Greeley — "with his great active brain and 
tender heart, his grand hatred of wrong and charity 
for the wrong-doer, his tireless benevolence, and his 
unceasing labor for all that elevates humanity." His 
fame is immortal, for he linked his labor to immortal 
things. His life was given to crush the wrong, to 
defend the right, to educate the ignorant, to purify 
the vicious, to aid the weak, to uplift the lowly, to 
free the slave. The familiar " H. G." became a sign 
of almost cabalistic meaning, and it glowed on the 
pages of the " Tribune " an impulse and an inspira- 



lyo LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

tion to all noble struggling toilers for the right, as the 
cross shone on the banners of Constantine to cheer 
and strengthen the defenders of the church. Pass- 
ing now into the August Presence, none will doubt 
that he has received the approving welcome, " Inas- 
much as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 

That man is truly thoughtful and humane whose 
sympathies are not confined to the circle of his own 
kindred, friends or acquaintance, but who, sitting 
securely in his own happy home, knows that wild 
hearts are throbbing in despair, sorrowful souls are 
suffering in silence, and pinched, wasting lives are 
weary in the struggle with want, in the great world 
outside his door. Through the full harmonies of 
his peaceful life there come ever to his ear the dis- 
cords of sin and suffering in the great passion-tossed, 
tumultuous world. As a retired sea captain, spending 
the evening of life in some quiet inland home, hears, 
on stormy nights, the tumult of the sea, and feels a 
thrill of sympathy for the toiling ship and the brave 
men struggling to avert disaster and death; so the 
man who has felt the buffetings of fortune, or knows 
by observation how want and woe are the unvary- 
ing attendants of many who throng the paths of 
life, feels his heart go out in warm and active sym- 
pathy for all the poor and unfortunate among his 
fellow men. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 171 



THE TIN-PAIL BRIGADE. 

A few mornings ago we were in Milwaukee, and 
at an early hour walked from the depot to the New- 
hall House. Early as it was, we had hardly ever 
before seen those familiar streets so thronged with 
pedestrians. We met the " tin-pail brigade " on their 
way to the entrenchments of labor. 

These streets, which a few hours later would throb 
with the pulse of business activity, were nearly silent 
now, except where the hurrying laborers thronged 
the sidewalks, each carrying his ration for the day 
in the little tin pail. An hour later and these men 
would be invisible — hidden in shops and forges and 
manufactories, where all the long day they would 
toil, many of them for barely enough to supply them- 
selves and those dependent upon them with the 
most absolute necessaries of life. 

We thought we could read a great deal of the 
home life of each in the passing glance we gave as 
they went hurrying by. Here was one whose cloth- 
ing was ragged and neglected, and on his face a hard, 
dissatisfied expression. It was easy to see there 
was no hope in his heart — that he went to his 
task as if it were a penalty imposed for crime, and 
that no pleasant and loving home life cheered him 
at the evening, and lifted from his heart the clouds 
that darkened his life. It is a terrible thing when 
the home of the poor lacks love, the only agency 



172 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

which can lighten its burdens and make it hopeful 
and happy. 

Beside him walks another — no better, but much 
cleanlier clad, and the broad patches of his blue 
overalls are cleanly put on and not fringed with rag- 
ged edges. He has a home — you can see that — 
and, humble as it may be, there is a woman who is 
a confidant as well as a wife, and together they plan 
how to use their little means and increase their scanty 
store of comforts. They have ambition, and ambi- 
tion to improve one's condition never fails to give 
force to character, and something of dignity and 
worth to life. 

Here is a boy, too, not yet out of his teens, but 
there is something cheery about his countenance 
which shows that hope has issued him some drafts 
upon the future, and the thought of some good he 
is struggling for takes the bitterness from his life of 
toil. So the world goes — each heart lighted by 
some hope, as each home is lighted by a lamp of its 
own. 

When we pass along the great business thorough- 
fares, and see the stately blocks rearing high their 
fronts adorned with elaborate and artistic workman- 
ship, we do not think of the great strong blocks lying 
hidden in basement and foundation walls, upon which 
the weight of the whole superstructure securely rests. 
Just so does labor underlie the whole system of 
commercial and business life, and wherever are the 
homes of opulence and the palaces of trade, there, 
close by, are the scanty dwellings tenanted by the 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 1 73 

numerous families of the "tin-pail brigade." To 
narrow the distance between these extremes — to 
give capital the encouragement and protection to 
which it is entitled, and upon which its existence de- 
pends, and at the same time give to labor the best 
remuneration, the broadest field and the amplest op- 
portunity possible, is the one great problem which 
the government has to solve to-day. 



LINES 

WRITTEN ON READING LINCOLN'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

On Stormy seas our good ship sails. 
The breakers gleam along the shore; 

She feels the breath of threat'ning gales, 
And quivers in the tempest's roar. 

Now is our hour of utmost need 

We watch each strained and bending mast, 

And saddened hearts in pity plead, 
" God save her till the peril's past." 

But he who rules her deck to-day 
Is stout of heart and firm of hand. 

And, mid the madd'ning tempest's play, 
Stands calm, courageous, fearless, grand. 

Thank God ! the hour has found the man, 
The night shall broaden into day ; 

Our land shall stand in Freedom's van. 
And Order reign, and Law have sway. 



^t74 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

Light. — What a wonderful thing is Light, which 
flows in upon us each morning as fresh as if new 
created, and steals away at night as slowly and 
regretfully as if that parting beam was its last! 
What a cheery philosopher is light ! — always look- 
ing on the bright side of things, and bringing life 
and bloom wherever it goes. And what an artist it 
is ! How it revels in the gorgeousness and delights 
in the delicacy of color ! What a glory it throws on 
valley and hillside ! How it stoops to deck the 
smallest flower with beauty, and searches out all 
penetrable nooks and corners and throws the smile 
of its gladness in upon them! How it lingers on 
the cheek of youth, tinging it with a bloom no 
painter can copy, and then — the daring artist — 
how it steals up to Beauty's lips, and leaves a crim- 
son line on their very verge ! 

By the way, reader, did you ever reflect that a man 
or woman never gets over the childish fear of the 
dark ? Reason and resolution may do much to con- 
trol it, but fragments of our childish fears and super- 
stitions cling to our stoutest manhood, just as at 
brightest noon shreds and patches of the night linger 
in shadow beneath the boughs of the thick-leaved 
trees. The darkness which hems in the day seems 
to be linked by mysterious influence to the darkness 
which circumscribes our lives, and vague fears, 
shadowy forebodings, ill -defined, unshapen fancies 
oppress us then, which we laugh at in the skeptical 
light of day. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 175 



REASON AND RELIGION. 

We have no sympathy with that rigid, purbUnd 
righteousness which clothes itself in an impenetrable 
conservatism — which clings, with obstinate tenacity, 
to old beliefs — which believes every innovation on 
the established order of things to be of the devil, and 
so shuts its ears against all discussion. We are not 
to be frightened from the discussion of any import- 
ant subject by the cry that the devil is one of the 
chief debaters. We remember that our blessed 
Saviour was accused as a blasphemer and Sabbath- 
breaker by the religionists of his day. We remem- 
ber that all true progress in science and religion has 
been pointed out by those who were deemed foolish 
or mad, and that the great benefactors of mankind 
have been greeted with calumny and contempt. 
Speech, discussion is the wind that is to winnow the 
chaff from the wheat ; and error cannot be confined 
in darkness, and rendered innocuous, but it must 
be vanquished in open combat, under the broad 
daylight of heaven. 

For ourself, we have no craving desire to get a 
sight into the spiritual world. If there is any spirit 
who wishes to communicate to us anything important 
or beneficial, we should be most happy to pay him 
respectful attention ; but we regard the practice and 
precepts of Christ as not only a safe, but sufficient 
law of life, — a law which, if obeyed, will bring bless- 
ing here, and added blessing hereafter. 



176 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. . 

We are not so ready to deify reason as some are. 
We have an idea that faith is not to be despised. 
Reason should be our guide in all matters which lie 
within its province; but religion has mysteries which 
the human mind cannot fathom. Reason and Reli- 
gion never contradict each other; they run on in 
closest unity and most perfect harmony, until religion 
passes beyond the ken of reason, and there reason 
should merge into faith, even as the early light of 
morning melts into the splendors of broadening day. 

We speak of Columbus as the Great Discoverer, 
forgetful that all around us are discoverers greater 
than he. He widened the horizon of the world for 
the people of his day, and for those who have suc- 
ceeded them ; but the process of discovery has been 
continually going on, until now the clear eye of Sci- 
ence reaches to the centre of the earth, disclosing 
hidden treasures and mysteries, and successfully 
searches the far-oif heavens, for stars and constella- 
tions unknown before. 

Art has supplemented Nature with manifold won- 
ders. Invention has reinforced the strength and 
increased the power of man, until the world of Co- 
lumbus' time is but an infant beside its manly stature 
of to-day. Into this wider world every human being 
comes in perfect ignorance, and Life is but a Voy- 
age of Discovery among its countless wonders. 

Just watch the growing intellect of your child. 
The first blind gropings of mental activity are fol- 
lowed by that busy baby-life which is satisfied by 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 177 

nursery toys. Soon the increasing stature of the 
little one is fitted for outdoor recreations, and ac- 
quaintance with the ever increasing circle of com- 
panionship begins. What ardor and enthusiasm in 
the youthful discoverer now! How the larger 
thoughts, the new ideas, throng to the receptive 
mind ! Every night shuts down upon a wider hori- 
zon ; every morning beckons to new experiences and 
untrodden paths. Daily you can mark the mental 
growth, and gladly note the joy of new discovery — 
the enlarging life — the outreaching mind. 

We are all but children of a larger growth, sur- 
rounded by outlying, undiscovered realms. Through 
these we grope from day to day. The farther our 
vision reaches, the more we see beyond, just as the 
sailor knows that, beyond the limit of the seeming 
horizon that shuts him in, the waters are rolling in 
wild waves, or sleeping idly in the sun. Every day 
increases our knowledge and ripens our experience. 
Gulfs of unexpected faithlessness or hate yawn be- 
fore us, and new loves and friendships join the pro- 
cession of our lives. 

Every night we are moored for a few hours by the 
shores of Sleep, and with the break of every morn we 
sail again upon the trackless sea of Time, piloting 
our course as best we may towards the Wealth that 
gleams in the distance — the Truth that shines se- 
renely on the far horizon — the Beautiful, which 
allures us with uplifted brow, persuasive smile and 
beckoning hand. Voyagers and discoverers are 
we all. 

12 



178 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

God never forgets anything. All his works, from 
the creation of a world to the tinting of a leaf, are 
finished — perfect. 

Did you ever stand under a full-boughed, heavy- 
foliaged tree in summer-time, and pluck one of its 
myriad leaves and examine its delicate tracery, its 
coloring, the very perfection of its finished beauty, 
and then think of the countless number of such 
leaves, of the mighty forests whose luxuriant growth 
covers so much of the world, and reflect that among 
them all there is not a leaf unfinished — each per- 
fect in its form and color ? 

And did you ever pick a flower, either from cult- 
ured garden or by way-side walk, enjoy its odor and 
bless its beauty, and stop to think how all the wide 
earth blossoms with such fragrant beauty, and no 
flower of them all forgotten — the same careful hand 
filling each glowing heart with perfume and coloring 
every leaf with care .'* 

When we think of this Omniscience, of this never- 
failing care, we feel something of the attributes of 
that Power — unseen, yet ever present; untouched, 
yet always felt — who gives to the violet its color, to 
the rose its fragrance, who tints with beauty the 
tiniest leaf, and yet whose hand controls the planets 
in their courses, and whose fiat rules the countless 
worlds. 

It is a fine thing to be able to ripen without shriv- 
eling; to reach the calmness of age, and still keep 
the warm heart and ready sympathy of youth. 



LUTE TAYLOR'S CHIP BASKET. 1 79 



BLIGHT AND BLOOM. 

Never, in the history of the world, has there been 
a time when the terrible blight of life, home, happi- 
ness and possessions has descended upon vast num- 
bers of people in such sudden and swift destruction 
as recently in our own Northwest, and never has 
there been a time when heroic fortitude and sweet 
and gracious charity have bloomed with a beauty so 
inspiring and glorious as now. Paradise was lost 
anew in the awful maelstrom of flame ; Paradise was 
regained again in a vision of the millions of treasure 
spontaneously poured into the lap of suffering want, 
and the tens of thousands of feet all over the civil- 
ized world hastening with swift emulation in the 
work of mercy and fraternal human love. One 
picture is as if hell had burst its bounds, and ran in 
unchecked riot for a time; the next as if pitying 
heaven had touched every heart with the divine im- 
pulse to relieve the suffering and repair the loss. 

It is impossible for words to portray either the 
darkness of the disaster or the brightness of the re- 
lief. The most eloquent description can no more 
picture the concentrated horror of the destruction 
of Chicago than a child's exclamation of wonder at 
a single star can portray the dazzling splendors of 
the countless suns and systems which fill the unex- 
plored and unimagined boundaries of the universe 
of God. Looking back now at those blackened 
wastes and colossal ruins, they seem even more 



i8o LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

mournful and impressive than when we wandered 
through streets filled with the flying ashes of homes, 
or clambered over the broken fragments of palaces 
of trade, through which malignant flames still darted 
their destroying tongues and hissed with scorching 
breath. Here the dread vision of the Apocalypse 
was realized — the very rocks had melted with fer- 
vent heat, and the treasures of art, the accumulations 
of industry, the gains of commerce, were all rolled 
together like a scroll, and heaped in one irremedia- 
ble ruin. There has been no scene of similar deso- 
lation since the ark rested on Ararat, and the dove 
winged her weary way over a submerged world. 

But if here was loss in gigantic form, and a horror 
concentrated as never known before, in our own 
State was a desolation spreading over a broader area 
and marked by scenes more sickening and suffering 
more intense. Such a wave of hell as broke upon 
doomed Peshtigo, and spread in fiery ruin over the 
adjacent country, has not been known since God's 
vengeance blotted Sodom and Gomorrah from 
existence. Who can conceive the surprise, the 
struggle, the agony, the despair, the awfulness of the 
situation and the powerlessness of the victims } Men 
in their strength, women in their beauty, new-born 
babes in their swaddling clothes, lovers in each 
other's arms, corpses in their shrouds, and the cof- 
fined dead ready for the tomb, became flame and 
ashes in the twinkling of an eye, while others baf- 
fling the destroyer for a time, were at last caught in 
his terrible grasp, and strangled in his embrace or 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. i8i 

left writhing in an agony to which death would be 
welcome relief. 

From such a picture it is sweet relief to turn to 
that sun-burst of sympathy which has illumined the 
world, and gilded our poor humanity with a glory 
unrecognized and unknown before. Then we found 
to what noble uses the telegraph and railroad might 
be put. Everywhere the lightning spoke the story 
of suffering and ruin, and brought back the response 
of sympathy and aid, and in every city and along 
every line of railway the great engines seemed to 
nerve themselves for a race to the aid of the house- 
less and hungry fugitives from flame. All ordinary 
feelings and interests were submerged in the one 
intense desire to render aid to those so suddenly 
stricken with overwhelming loss. No thought of 
church, creed or condition divided the force of feel- 
ing which filled every heart and found expression on 
every tongue. It was a new revelation of " good 
will to men" — a sublime translation of the gospel 
of Him who taught that it was more blessed to give 
than to receive, and who said that " Inasmuch as 
you have done it unto these, my brethren, you have 
done it unto me." 

The response everywhere was so prompt, the re- 
lief so abundant, and the sympathy so sincere, that 
it seems useless to point out single instances, but 
one was so large that it well deserves mention. 

At the first news of the calamity, the Erie Rail- 
road made up a New York train, and sent its 'many 
agents and employes through the city gathering sup- 



i82 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

plies. A few hours accomplished the work, and 
while this was doing, President Gould performed a 
work unequaled in the history of railroad manage- 
ment. All along the line his orders flew that the 
relief train had the right of way. And so it started, 
with relays of engines provided, and orders to make 
not less than forty miles an hour. Such a trip was 
never known before. The great freight trains sought 
the safety of side-tracks. The lightning expresses, 
with their mails and treasure, with passengers hurry- 
ing to meet business appointments, or intent on rec- 
reation — all stood still waiting for the passage of 
this unexpected train. Trade checked its impatience, 
pleasure forgot its disappointment, while mercy sped 
on, supplied with more than royal munificence and 
hastening with unimagined speed. It was a glorious 
thing to do. 

So the one picture relieves the other. While the 
world is poorer to-day by millions of treasure and 
hundreds of lives, it is richer in the discovery of its 
own heroic qualities and saintly charities, and the 
conviction must come home with redoubled force to 
us all that, however poor and barren our individual 
lives may be. Humanity is heroic, affluent, large and 
warm. 

Dress is to a woman what binding is to a book — 
it may greatly improve the appearance, but cannot 
give increased value to the worth or worthlessness 
of that which it adorns. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 183 



RADICALISM. 

The mass of timid and doubtful men, the men who 
were sure the Rebellion never could be subdued, the 
men who look on progress as necessary disaster, and 
to whom a hoary error is more sacred than a living 
truth, look on Radicalism as though it meant " chaos 
come again," and Radicals as though they were sac- 
rilegious vandals wantonly plundering the Temple 
of Liberty. To their dim vision a Radical is a de- 
stroyer — whereas he is only the true renewer and 
builder. 

You go through a street in a great city, and you 
see the workmen tearing down a building which has 
stood long and answered a useful purpose. What 
waste ! What criminal destruction of property ! you 
say. Not so. The old building is removed, the 
rubbish is cleared away, and a new, spacious and 
beautiful edifice is raised in its place. 

Now, constitutions and laws are the house a nation 
lives in, the clothes it wears, and if there is growth 
in the people there must be change in the laws. 
Their spirit may not change, but their form must — 
just as the boy may wear the same kind of cloth 
after he becomes a man, but it must be cut by a 
larger pattern. 

The Radical is not the vandal who sacks and de- 
stroys with no object but ruin ; he is the wise builder 
who removes the old, which has been outgrown, and 
replaces in its stead the new, which is adapted to 



184 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

present need. In the fever and flush of a poHtical 
revolution, Uke that of the few years past, much that 
is crude and unwise may be suggested by too enthu- 
siastic leaders, but the people are pretty sure to act 
with a wise moderation, in the spirit of true Radi- 
calism. 

Radicalism is the synonym of all that is wise, 
heroic and humane in the American politics of 
to-day. 



LOOKS UPWARD TO GOD. 

[I turn then to the American people, and to that God who has never 
forsaken them. — Extract from Lincoln'' s speech at Columbus^ Ohio.'] 

There's a storm in the land threat'ning wide desolation, 
There's a must'ring of men, and a firing of blood ; 

But trust fills our hearts, for the hope of the nation, 
The chief of our choosing, looks upward to God. 

In the virtue of man and the blessings of heaven, 
His faith rests unshaken, his heart knows no fear , 

For that God who the boon of our freedom has given. 
Will shine through our darkness, and smile on us here. 

Then treason may mock — cursed sons of the nation 
May stab at the hand that has given them food ; 

But the ark of our freedom stands firm and unshaken, 
For the chief of our choosing looks upward to God. 



LUTE TAYLOR'S CHIP BASKET. 185 

INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE 
UPON LIFE. 

The fable of the " living tree, Igdrasil, with the me- 
lodious, prophetic wavings of its world-wide boughs, 
deep-rooted as Hela," has died out ; but in its place 
we have the accomplished fact of the Printing Press, 
with wider influence than fable ever foreshadowed, 
with power more potent than Pagan philosophy ever 
dreamed of. 

Much as is accorded to the press, men do not yet 
fully appreciate the controlling influence which Lit- 
erature has upon Life. 

Burke appreciated it when he said there were 
three estates in Parliament, but in the reporters' 
gallery there sat a fourth estate more important far 
than they all. 

Mr. Southey understood it. " Literature will take 
care of itself," said Mr. Pitt, when applied to for 
some help for Burns. "Yes," added Mr. Southey, 
" it will take care of itself, and of you^ too, if you do 
not look to it." 

Carlyle saw its growing prospective power, when, 
thirty years ago, he proclaimed in his brave, reso- 
nant speech, " I say of all priesthoods, aristocracies, 
governing classes at present extant in the world, 
there is no class comparable for importance to that 
priesthood of the writers of books." 

The art of writing — and of printing, which is a 
sequence to it, — is really the most wonderful thing 



i86 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

in the world. Books are the soul of actions, the 
only audible, articulate voice of the accomplished 
facts of the past. The men of antiquity are dead ; 
their fleets and armies have disappeared, their cities 
are ruins, their temples are dust — yet all these exist 
in magic preservation in the books they have be- 
queathed to us, and their names and their deeds are 
as familiar to us as the events of yesterday. And 
these papers and books — the mass of printed matter 
which we call Literature — are really the teacher, 
guide and law-giver of the world to-day. 

You may judge a man more truly by the books 
and papers which he reads than by the company 
which he keeps — for his associates are often in a 
manner forced upon him, but his reading is the re- 
sult of choice — and the man who chooses a certain 
class of books and papers unconsciously becomes 
more colored with their views, more rooted in their 
opinions, the mind becoming 

" Subdued to what it works in. 
Like the dyer's hand." 

We have not space to specify the various proofs 
of the controlling influence of Literature. We can 
only state undeniable general truths. All the life 
and feeling of the young girl, fascinated by some 
glowing love romance, is colored and shaped by the 
page she reads. If it is false and weak and foolish, 
she will be false and weak and fooHsh too ; but if it 
is true and tender and inspiring, then something of 
its truth and tenderness and inspiration will grow 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 187 

into her soul and become part of her very self. The 
boy who reads of deeds of manliness, of bravery 
and noble daring, feels the spirit of emulation grow 
within him, and the seed is planted which will bring 
forth fruit of heroic endeavor and exalted life. 



TRUE FRIENDS. 

My Dear Joe : 

Did you ever think how transitory most of the 
friendships of life are — how very slight the tie that 
binds us even to those whose company we enjoy, 
and whose pleasure we would promote } How easily 
change of place or circumstance crowds out the old 
occupants of the heart and welcomes new ones in ! 
We are surrounded with pleasant people, their 
society fills a large place in our lives, their respect 
and esteem is highly valued, we are glad to receive 
and render favors; but let us be removed from 
them but a short distance, just so that the orbits of 
our daily life do not intersect each other, and some- 
how they fade imperceptibly but surely away, just 
as the mist fades or the closing day darkens. 

And the dead — they whose life, while living, 
seemed, a necessity to our own, and whose death was 
like an eclipse of all our joyous being — how easily 
we become accustomed to their absence, and daily 
duties and new-found loves bridge over the awful 
chasm and fill the gloomy chaos which their depart- 
ure made. 



i88 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

But some friendships live; some loves take such 
deep hold upon the heart that 

" Time but the impression stronger makes. 
As streams their channels deeper wear." 

Did you ever go into some rich old picture gallery, 
Joe, where the walls were hung with glowing master- 
pieces of nature and life — grandeur to awe the soul, 
and beauty to delight the eye, and where the ceilings 
were illuminated by the hand of genius and radiant 
with the very smile and triumph of art ? Those pict- 
ures come and go. Where you find a favorite to-day 
a new-comer will hang to-morrow; but the frescoed 
miracles of art stay steadfast in their place. No 
change disturbs them, but there they remain, grow- 
ing ripe and mellow with age. 

Just so it is with the heart. Many pleasant occu- 
pants come and go, but there are those who stay, like 
the frescoes on the walls and are an integral portion 
of the heart itself. He who has such friends — whose 
memory is a picture gallery, where in frescoed beauty 
smile the faces of unfading love — is rich indeed, 
rich in goods that cannot be purchased in the mar- 
ket, and whose value does not fluctuate with the 
price of gold. That you and I, Joe, may have such 
friends, and deserve them, is the wish of Lute. 

A DOCTOR is continually standing upon the con- 
fines of existence — welcoming the new-comer, bid- 
ding farewell to the goer-away. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 189 



ART. 

There is a great deal of humbug about what is 
called Art. It is regarded as " nice," and for its sake 
the fashionable lady endures an opera which she 
cannot comprehend, and the school miss works im- 
possible animals in stunning colors. Men will crowd 
a theatre to see the representation of Medea — a 
roused, passionate woman — and applaud the mimic 
representation with delight, when very likely many 
of them, if at home, could witness the reality itself 
without the expense of buying a ticket. Look at 
pictures. A short time ago we were all enthusiastic 
over Prang's chromos of ducks and chickens. How 
foolish to purchase the picture, when we could buy 
the live chicken for less money, which would be at 
least fully as "natural" as the picture, and, after 
having admired its beauty, we could broil its body 
and gratify the taste with its delicate flavor, thus 
making it serve a useful as well as aesthetic purpose ! 
— like the South Sea Islander, who patiently listens 
while the missionary strives to enlighten his benighted 
mind, and then coolly carves and cooks the preacher 
and appeases his hunger with the savory joints. Just 
now Correggio's "Magdalen" is a great favorite. 
The picture is rich, voluptuous, fascinating. But 
we suppose there are very many fully as beautiful 
and finely formed young women alive to-day — yet 
their friends would hardly advise them to adopt the 
scanty costume and abandon of manner which is ad- 



190 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

mired in Magdalen, who probably was not a very 
nice, fastidious girl. Look at landscape paintings. 
People will go into ecstacies over an impossible land- 
scape hanging on a parlor wall, who are blind to the 
wondrous exhibitions of nature around them, and 
never lift their sleepy eyes to that wondrous picture 
gallery, the sky, which God's mighty hand fills day 
and night with forms and colors of ever-changing 
glory and gloom. Art is valuable only as an incen- 
tive to observe, and a help to appreciate nature. It 
should be a means, not an end — the priestess in the 
temple service, not the goddess to whom adoration 
is given. 



TO DESDEMONA. 

Thou bright creation of the poet's mind ! 

In thee did his great soul express 

Its fairest type of female loveliness. 

In thee all feelings pure, refined, 

Do dwell. Each inmost thought of thine 

Is holy as a saint's rapt dream of heaven, 

While every outward charm to thee is given. 

As timid buds blush coyly into bloom. 

So do thy modest virtues show their worth ; 

And as the full flower sheds a rich perfume, 

So doth thy presence beautify the earth. 

Oh, winning Teacher! Thou didst well fulfill 

Life's holy mission, and though dark thy fate, 

Yet from thy pure life will we still 

Learn to love virtue for its own dear sake. 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 191 



THE TRIUMPH OF PRINCIPLE. 

[Written upon the occasion of the dissolution of the Ameri- 
can Anti-Slavery Society.] 

The world has seldom witnessed a more imposing 
sight than the grand military review at Washington 
at the close of the late war. The victorious veterans 
of the army of the Republic, bronzed by sun and 
battered by fight, swept in triumphal procession past 
the pleased eyes of chiefs and civilians, and brave 
men paid them heartfelt homage, and lovely women 
gilded the glory of their achievements with the 
brightness of beauty's smiles. The sight was grar^d 
and inspiring, and when that mighty army so sud- 
denly melted away — the resistless soldiers becoming 
quiet, peaceful citizens once more — the world looked 
on in wonder, and marveled at the flexibility of our 
national life, and at the almost miraculous complete- 
ness of the change. 

But there was another "muster out," a few days 
since, no less full of significance. It lacked the 
pomp and circumstance of the Washington review 
— its soldiers wore no uniform, but they were vete- 
rans none the less. It was the dissolution of the 
American Anti-Slavery Society. That society has 
been engaged in a forty years' war, and there were 
veterans at the final muster out who had been among 
the earliest enlistments. 

In its infancy, the members of that society en- 



192 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

dured contumely and hate, they were the objects of 
reproach and scorn, they suffered personal indignity 
and were exposed to personal danger. Unseduced 
by the blandishments of social position, and unal- 
lured by the temptations of political power, they 
followed where duty led, as grandly as Israel fol- 
lowed the cloudy pillar and the flaming guide — for 
they knew that, as of old, God was in the van, and 
his people would not suffer loss. 

By-and-by conviction came to the multitude, truth 
was triumphant, and tardy honor kissed the veterans' 
brows. They lay off their armor now, for the victory 
is complete, the work is done. 



THE BANNER. 



[Written on the occasion of the presentation of a prize banner by the 
State to Pierce county, Wis., for the best display of farm products at the 
State fair.] 

Thou wast not won on bloody field, 

Where murderous hosts in conflict meet ; 

But where the long broad furrows yield 
Their yellow wealth of ripened wheat. 

Now Honor sits on Labor's brow, 

The golden days return again ; 
And Science fair shall guide the plow 

Which turns the brown tilth of the plain. 

Peace hath her victories, and the land 

Which honors thus her sons of toil 
Shall never want a willing hand 

To guard or till her fruitful soil. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 193 



THE WANING YEAR. 

" The year growing ancient. 
Not yet on Summer's death, nor on the birth 

Of trembling Winter." 

— Shaks. Winter's Tale. 

Autumn is the season of fruition, recompense, re- 
ward. Spring is the time of promise ; Summer, of 
busy fulfillment; x\utumn, of ripened, perfected full- 
ness and possession. In Autumn nature pays the 
bills which have been drawn upon her through the 
year, and decks herself with lavish expenditure and 
more than royal pomp and beauty. 

June is full of fragrance and subtle beauty, but 
October is ripe, sensuous, glowing, imperial. On 
these warm, hazy days, when the sunlight kisses but 
does not scorch, when the very streams seem to 
meditate as they murmer along, when wood-crowned 
bluff and hillside glow with every imaginable color, 
aad the soft haze, like the veil of a bride, heightens 
the beauty which it half conceals, — on such days 
the lost Eden seems restored again, the old poetic 
traditions of mythology revive, and wood and field 
and spring and glen are sanctified by the presence 
of attendant deities who whisper their secrets into 
willing ears. It is a "liberal education" to be 
abroad at such a time, providing only one has the 
eye to see the unexcelled and ever-shifting panorama 
of beauty, and the heart to treasure up its wonderful 
revelations. 

13 



194 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

One fact cannot fail to interest the observer, and 
that is the uniformity of the " fall fashions " for bird 
or beast or field or tree. The prairie chicken, which 
peers at you from the tall grass, is the same color as 
it; the partridge, which scurries away through the 
thick underbrush, is scarcely distinguishable from 
the foliage which covers its flight ; and even the chip- 
munk, which chippers at the base of the great bluff, 
wears in his" own striped coat the colors of the oak, 
the maple and the sumach which glow so gorgeously 
above him. 

One views, too, with an admiration which deepens 
into awe, the perfection everywhere manifest. No 
mistakes or incompleteness here. That great Power 
for whom innumerable temples are built, to whom 
perpetual prayer and praise ascends, and who holds 
uncounted worlds in his keeping, does not neglect 
the fashioning of the most slender stem, or the tint- 
ing of the tiniest leaf. 

A SHORT time ago we were one of a small party 
which visited a beautiful cemetery lying in the lap of 
majestic mounds, and looking out upon a fair city 
and a broad reach of prairie and river. Nature had 
made this a lovely spot, and art had added to its 
attractions. The sunlight lay warm upon shapely 
evergreens and carefully tended flowers, and the 
spot looked indeed like a place of rest, where, " after 
life's fitful fever," one might sleep sweetly and well. 

Winding around and up the stately bluffs were 
carriage ways of easy grade, and, terrace above ter- 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. I95 

race, bank above bank, rose the pillared massive 
monuments, or gleamed the humbler marble slabs. 
But more affecting than the most costly memorial 
which wealth had placed over the last resting place 
of its loved, were the frequent little mounds, newly 
made, which told where a mother had laid her child 
down in the embrace of that kindly Earth which is 
mother of us all. And then we thought that these 
sun-warmed, flower-fringed banks of earth were 
banks indeed, banks where we deposit our choicest 
treasures, and in whose silent vaults they shall safely 
lie until the resurrection morn. And the mothers 
who silently bore their darlings here — we could not 
think of them as impoverished and bereft, but rather 
as the royal possessors of blessed memories and of 
treasures deposited, safe from all possible disaster or 
loss, which should be returned to them in heaven. 
The balance of the bank-book is not so sure an 
index of garnered wealth as are the little mounds 
which break the graveyard sod into billows of green. 
O, better the mound and the marble than the living 
death which blights but does not kill. Better the 
sexton and the bell, than the slow decay of honor, 
the loss of love, the sunset of hope, and the darken- 
ing eclipse of life. The cemetery is not a synonym 
for sadness, nor the grave so dreadful as a stranded, 
rotting soul. Not all that marble covers was laid 
down in faith and love and tears, but we know the 
little mounds cover only what was precious, pure 
and fair. 



196 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

The Black Crook. — Its plot is moral. Fiends 
and fairies struggle for the possession of a noble 
human soul, and the fiends get badly euchred. This 
is excellent, and gives a man's good resolutions a 
healthy jog. 

Its pictures, sometimes called scenery, are very 
gorgeous and glowing, and have an excellent moral. 
Hell is a fearful ugly place, and the abodes of the 
fairies, or spirits of good, shine with splendor, like a 
row of tin pans in the summer sun. The wicked 
old Black Crook is toasted like a muffin on Zamiel's 
trident, and the virtuous Rodolph has a good time 
of it with Stalacta and the rest of the girls. In 
brief, the pictures forcibly portray the sinfulness of 
sin, and the blessedness of being good. 

Its ballet has been supposed to be somewhat de- 
moralizing. It is not. It is as proper as a girl's 
recess at a district school in the summer time. The 
dresses of the dam — sels are uselessly long, for the 
lower limbs shown on the stage are no more seduc- 
tive than the legs of Rus. Munger's pianos, or the 
legs turned out by a lathe machine. This can be 
relied on. 

The Black Crook may be slightly seductive as 
performed in New York, but I am proud to call 
attention to the superior morality of the West, and 
the tribute which Mammon pays to the virtues of 
St. Paul, in that in deference to the pure and healthy 
tastes of her people, this play, as presented to them, 
is shorn of all appearance of evil, and is exalted 
into a great moral and almost evangelical agency. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 197 

CHRISTMAS AND CHRISTMAS 

giving/ 

What ! Write about Christmas; that is an old sub- 
ject to say anything fresh or interesting about. Yes, 
it is an old subject — not old as the world, but only 
old as He whose divine nature and transcendent 
work makes him hailed as the Saviour of the world. 
There are things older than Christmas which yet 
have the grace of youth and the freshness of a first 
experience in them. The morning, which breaks in 
light and wakes a world with impalpable touch, is 
older than Christmas, yet its beauty is fresh as when 
its beams first lit the abysses of chaos, and struggled 
through the misty shrouds of ancient night. The 
summer showers, which ride on sunbeams to the 
happy earth and steal in vapor back to the parent 
skies, are now as fresh as when flower or grass first 
brightened at their touch. That wondrous and 
inimitable artist. Frost, who covers in a few hours 
whole landscapes with a tracery more delicate, a 
finish more perfect than tiny brush of painter dare 
to emulate, he is older than the hills he crowns with 
snows, or the brooks whose babbling voice he stills. 
No, Christmas really is not so very old, after all. 
It is an after- thought of time — one of the improve- 
ments of these later progressive days. Love, now and 
forever to be symbolized by a child, was old before 
the Star of Bethlehem blessed the earth with its re- 
joicing rays. The mother looked into the sweet face 



19S LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

of her babe, the youth walked with beating heart 
beside the blushing maid, filial love tended rever- 
ently upon decrepit age — long before Mary sang her 
low lullaby to the infant Jesus, or the wise men fol- 
lowed the star which led to where he lay. Moses, 
rocked by the reedy Nile, and watched by faithful 
love; Ruth, following the reapers with modest mien 
and downcast eyes ; Esther, clad with the purple of 
power, yet linked with unabating love to the lowly 
people of her race — shall we forget or cease to listen 
with rapt admiration to the simple annals of their 
lives .^ — and yet they all antedate Christmas by long 
centuries of years. 

No, the story of Christmas is new and ever will 
be, for it is in the very essence of all things noble 
and loving and pure that they laugh at time and 
wear the coronal of youth forever. And what so 
noble as the life whose beginning Christmas com- 
memorates.'' — what so loving as that spirit which 
has mellowed the asperities of life, and made one 
birthday a universal festival.^ — what so pure as the 
doctrines of the Great Teacher who gathered into one 
grand sheaf all the worthy maxims of morality and 
rules of religion which had been taught by saint or 
sage before him, and glorified them with a new splen- 
dor, and infused into them a breadth, a power, hith- 
erto unapproachable and unknown } 

It is fitting that Christmas should be a day of 
gifts — a holiday indeed. It should be the world's 
vacation from care, its festival of hope and joy. We 
are taught that divine beneficence found its highest 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 199 

expression in the gift to the world of Him whom 
this day commemorates; so let the Christmas trees 
blossom with beauty, let the Christmas carols break 
into melody, and let happy childhood run riot in a 
joy whose meaning and explanation shall come to 
them in riper years. 



LOAFERISM IS DEATH. 

" What is a man. 
If his chief good and market of his time 
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more." 

— Hamlet. 

Start not, reader, it is true. Loaferism is death 
— death of the most dismal and dangerous kind. 
There are more kinds of death than one. There is 
the death of the body, when sad farewells are spoken, 
when eyelids droop over sightless eyes, and pale lips 
close over voiceless mouths, when in silence and mid 
sorrow the stern agony is endured, and the light and 
warmth of life is exchanged for "the shroud, the 
pall, the breathless darkness, and the narrow house." 
This death alone is inevitable. But as sunlight often 
gilds the mountain's top, around whose lower sides 
dark clouds are drifting, so is there a land of light 
and blessedness lying somewhere in the " Great Un- 
known." But there is a death or torpor of the mind, 
a death of kindly affection, a death of generous trust 
and ennobling faith, a death of fixed purpose and 



200 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

noble endeavor which lead to a brightness beyond. 
Here is a business man, alive to the musical chimes 
of silver and gold, keen to detect the means of pecu- 
niary gain. In his eager, untiring labor for wealth, 
he has forgotten the wealth of affection, the world of 
intellectual enjoyment which lies around him^ The 
heart is dead, but a portion of his intellect is sharp- 
ened into unnatural life. Here is the ignorant day- 
laborer. He knows nothing of the wealth of science, 
the lore of history, or the charms of poetry. His 
mind is all uncultured and inert. But he is not 
wholly dead. His heart is alive. He loves his wife 
and joys in the sweet presence of his children, and 
labors cheerfully for their support. Here is another 
whose course in life is fitful and changing as April 
skies. He has no fixed purpose. He goes on like a 
sail-vessel driven here and there by every wind, and 
often becalmed — instead of moving steadily onward 
like a steamer breasting every opposing wave, and 
dashing aside obstacles as the steamer at every pulse- 
beat of its fiery heart dashes aside the spray. Some 
part of his manhood is dead. He has no faith in the 
omnipotence of work, no just conception of his dig- 
nity as man, no worthy goal in view, and so his course 
is vacillating and uncertain. 

The loafer has suffered the triple death of heart, 
mind and purpose. He cannot love any one worthily, 
for love makes us self-distrustful, it awaken^ desire 
for nobler life, it inspires to work. He cannot even 
be a good friend, for his nature is too sluggish to 
perceive and meet the delicate requirements of 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 201 

friendship. His mind is dead, except that baser 
part which gives expression to passion and appetite. 
The dignity of man, the divinity of knowledge, the 
desirableness of self-culture, the unmeasured worth 
of the soul — all these inspiring thoughts are lost to 
him. O loafer! thou art a miserable being. Thy 
life is aimless as the beast's. Thou wilt gaze on life 
with an eye as dull as that of the ox who looks on a 
beautiful landscape. 

Young man, would you be a loafer } It is a small 
task. '''' Facilis descensus Averni est'' "The way to 
hell (or loaferism, about the same thing,) is easy." 
You have only to hate to work, to neglect to culti- 
vate your mind, to acquire a passion for playing all 
kinds of games and telling all kinds of stories, to 
allow yourself to hang around public places, and the 
thing is done. You are defunct, dead and worthless, 
and you bear about your own epitaph, written unmis- 
takably plain — Loafer ! 

A FEW days ago, just as the sun was rising, in the 
stillness of the beautiful morning we heard the rum- 
ble and roar of a great train leaving the depot. 
Turning our eyes that way, we found the train itself 
concealed from view, but its progress was marked by 
the great bursts of smoke which constantly rose from 
the engine, marking the changing position and pro- 
gress of the train. Never before have we seen such 
a trailing banner, full a mile in length, as that engine 
bore through the clear thin air of that wintry morn. 
Rolling out in great black billows, it would widen 



202 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

and whiten, unroll and spread, and pile up in fan- 
tastic shapes, only to unroll again and take on other 
shapes more fantastic still, still rising higher and 
growing more impalpable and clear, until at last it 
melted imperceptibly away, swallowed up by the 
surrounding air. 

Looking at this wonderful, ever-shifting and ever- 
whitening panorama, we thought how like it was to 
the memory which a good man leaves behind him. 
Seen in the present, his life, at best, is full of imper- 
fections, veined with black lines of selfishness, am- 
bition or greed — but, as the years pass away, these 
fade out in the mellow light of time ; we think and 
speak of them no more, and so at last his memory 
comes to be purified of all stain, and is ever after 
an inspiration for goodness and truth to all who 
think upon it ; and the man himself, according to 
his position and influence, is enshrined in the love 
of friends and relatives, or taken into the world's 
wide heart, is canonized as a saint and made a po- 
tent power forevermore. Happy they, be they hum- 
ble or famous, who leave such memories behind ! 

Fancy is merely Fact coquetting a little with 
Falsehood. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 203 



TRAIN AND CHRISTIANITY. 

[From an editorial reviewing a lecture by George Francis 
Train, so far as it alluded to the Christian religion.] 

The Christian religion, as the abiding faith and 
the last enduring hope of all civilized mankind, is in 
no danger from Mr. Train. What the deep and rev- 
erent skepticism of Spinoza, the monumental learn- 
ing of Hobbes, the wit of Voltaire, the bitterness 
and malignity of Paine and the logic of Taylor have 
vainly assailed, will receive no detriment from the 
assaults of a man whose highest claims to public 
attention are found in the fact that his impudence 
and egotism render his ignorance amusing. 

We do not mean to deny to Mr. Train the posses- 
sion of an incisive wit, a vivacious and brilliant 
intelligence, and what has been aptly called "vast 
and varied misinformation," but his attempts to ex- 
plain the origin of Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster and 
Mahomet disclosed such utter ignorance of the sub- 
ject as to create amazement even in the minds of 
his warmest admirers. 

As already intimated, there was nothing original 
in Mr. Train's onslaught upon Christianity. It was 
a sickly revival of old stock quotations and Joe Mil- 
lerisms on the subject, which civilization has lived 
down — which the intelligence of the age, in har- 
mony with its spiritual needs and resentments, has 
long since banished among the obscenities. 



204 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 

But while there is no danger to the body of Chris- 
tian theology and the Christian institutions of the 
land, from such puny efforts as these, there is danger 
that thoughtless persons, like some who applauded 
the other evening, beguiled into hero-worship by the 
wit and " smartness " of the speaker, may have their 
faith unsettled. For a man who has been reared in 
the shadow of the church, who has found in its 
teachings alone the answer to his questionings of 
the hereafter — for such a man to be brought to ask 
that awful question, " Art thou he that should come, 
or look we for another?" — and to go away doubting 
and unsatisfied, is the mournfullest thing that can 
befall a soul upon earth. 

A religion — a belief in the fixed relations of all 
men to a universal divine government, and in a fu- 
ture state where imperishable souls will fulfill a des- 
tiny determined by their conduct in this — is as 
much a natural constituent of the human mind as 
will, memory or understanding, and the want of such 
belief as monstrous and abnormal as a condition of 
idiocy. Nothing proves this more clearly than the 
avidity with which men in all ages have embraced 
the impostures brought to them in the name of re- 
ligion. Many of these impostures, like Mahometan- 
ism, have sustained polities and systems of govern- 
ment and forms of partial civilization for centuries. 
But in every case where they have not been dis- 
carded by the intelligence of the peoples holding 
them they have been discredited by the manifest 
superiority of other systems rising above them. 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 205 

Eighteen centuries ago many such systems had per- 
ished, and their traditions were scattered through the 
silly fables of barbarism. The Greeks, and the Ro- 
mans after them, had reasoned Jupiter out of exist- 
ence, and while some of their wise men were at- 
tempting to make to themselves a new God out of 
philosophy, the masses were flocking in obedience 
to the uncontrollable instinct, around the impure 
altars of Phoenician and Egyptian divinities. Vice 
and ignorance on the one hand, and mere intellectual 
license on the other, rooted out the pristine virtues 
and the old faith of the people, and were preparing 
the way for the downfall of the ancient civilization. 
It was the age when skepticism stood ready to join 
hands with depravity. 

It is not too much to say that the Christian reli- 
gion which came in this Providential period, and in 
spite of fire and sword and persecution, in spite of 
the poverty, obscurity and weakness of its origina- 
tors and adherents, fastened itself upon the times, 
intercepted the calamity, and preserved the world 
fron[i barbarism. And from that period down to the 
present, it has been the founder of laws, the nurse of 
the arts, the forerunner and pioneer of the only form 
of civilization which promises the redemption of all 
men to higher and nobler life. And not only has it 
proved itself the great organizer of society and gov- 
ernment, but in its influence upon individuals, in 
mitigating and soothing the asperities of existence, 
and lifting spiritual aspirations into definite assur- 
ance, it has shown itself the indispensable support 



2o6 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

of that humanity which is more important than gov- 
ernment and more enduring than society. Every 
good thing which is known to modern man, every 
social ordinance and pubUc institution to whose care, 
as to an ark of safety, he commits his children, his 
country and his hopes, is involved, for good or evil, 
with the fate of the Christian system; and every 
thrust and stab at the integrity of that system is a 
blow at civil order and social safety. 

What shall we have in its place when it is stricken 
down } Where is the philosophy, the code of merely 
human ethics without divine sanction, with power to 
dominate and unify the intellect of all men in its 
support, and restrain their lusts within those limits 
where alone civilization is possible.? Is it in the 
twaddle of George Francis Train.? — the airy refine- 
ments of Emerson.? — the mysticism of Hegel and 
Fichte ? But every man who has succeeded in stifling 
the cry of his heart for supernatural aid may as- 
sume his equality with the greatest of these, and 
reject the authority of each in his turn, and estab- 
lish a code of ethics for himself. The intellectual 
perversities and delusions which must inevitably 
follow from such confusion of ideas and systems 
would very quickly demonstrate their own absurdity 
and perish, but in their fall might drag down to de- 
struction the whole fabric of civil society. 

Are those who applauded Mr. Train's speech the 
other evening prepared for the change .? We think 
not. Let them be satisfied (as who is not .?) of the 
deficiencies and imperfections of the church, and 



LUTE TAYLOR'S CHIP BASKET. 207 

the misdeeds of many professing Christians — yet 
they will see, upon examination, that faulty as it is, 
its faults are in its administration and not in its 
origin or principles ; that, faulty as it is, there is on 
earth for the soul of man no other refuge and no 
other hope. 

We have penned these words, not as professing 
Christians, nor as men worthy either in character or 
conduct to stand for so great a cause, but from the 
standpoint of men of the world who would not will- 
ingly see destroyed the only existing guarantee of 
progress and civilization, and who, if they have not 
the grace to choose the better part themselves, yet 
cannot endure that all sacred things should be 
scoffed at in public places in a Christian land, by a 
man who boasts of his ignorance in those branches 
of learning most needed in order to judge of them, 
and whose most conspicuous trait is inability to com- 
prehend that which he sneers at. 



2o8 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 



"ALL RIGHT." 

There are some little phrases which occupy the 
same place in the coinage of words that dimes and 
sixpences do in the coinage of money. They are 
freely passed back and forth in the interchange of 
thought, and every one shares in their possession. 
Among these is the phrase "All right." Young 
America meets his fellow in the street, and accosts 
him with the customary "How d'ye do.?" "All 
right," is the ready response. The merchant, 
counting the change for an article just sold, blandly 
assures the purchaser that it is "all right." You 
ask the steamboat clerk about your state-room, or 
the porter about your baggage, and receive the con- 
soling assurance — "All right." A friend shows 
you a note bearing your signature, which he has just 
purchased. You glance at it, and, with the most 
perfect sa?2g-froid, remark "All right." The train 
is filled with anxious and impatient passengers, the 
engine hisses and groans like a demon in pain, and 
its fiery heart seems to throb with anger at the de- 
lay, yet it stands motionless, waiting for the conduc- 
tor's signal that "all's right." A short time ago we 
were driving along, and as we were going down a 
hill at rather a reckless speed, a sudden turn brought 
us into close proximity to another carriage loaded 
with ladies and gentlemen. A light shadow of fear 
and apprehension clouded the fair faces of the 
ladies, but as we whirled past, the hubs of the car- 



LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 209 

riages merely giving each other a friendly rub, a 
jolly, rollicking, good-natured looking fellow, whose 
Young America hat sat jauntily on his head, pleas- 
antly mformed us that everything was "all right." 
We had scarcely anything in our head but the end 
of a cigar, and its mild influence induced a musing 
mood — and so we fell to thinking whether our jolly 
fellow had told the truth when he said "all right." 
Did he realize the breadth and comprehensiveness 
of that phrase ? Was it " all right " with him ? Were 
his thoughts and actions toward that sweet-faced 
girl by his side " all right ?" Was his conduct toward 
her that of manly honesty and noble reverence ? 
Were his thoughts chastened and ennobled by gazing 
on her beauty, or was he toying with her to pass an 
idle hour, watching with pleasure his power to call 
the color to her cheek, and criminally waking up 
emotions and feelings which must flow forth unmet ? 
In his relations toward the world was he " all right.?" 
Did he. harbor no feelings of anger or resentment 
toward any one ? Was the " golden rule " the law 
of his life, or was he selfish in his aims and purposes, 
pushing his way to his desired goal, regardless of the 
rights, the interests or the feelings of others ? In his 
relations to himself was he "all right.?" Was he vio- 
lating no law of his physical being ? Was he always 
true to his better judgment and noblest impulse ? 
Had the possibility of human culture, of a manly 
and noble growth of soul, occurred to him.? Was 
his mind enriched and strengthened by calm reflec- 
tion, by careful observation, by communion with the 
14 



2IO LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

great souls of the present and of past ages? Was 
his eye trained to see the beauty that greets us with 
all its freshness on each succeeding day ? Did he 
rightly appreciate and enjoy 

" The glory of the sunset skies. 
The tenderer beauty of the dawn?" 

In his relations to the Great Maker of all was he 
"all right?" Was his whole soul permeated with a 
deep feeling of reverence and adoration as he looked 
up to the Giver of all good ? Had he learned to 
" look through Nature up to Nature's God ? " Did he 

" Love all virtue, like the light, 
Dear to the soul as sunshine to the eye?" 

In fact, was he, as he jocularly assured us, "all 
right?" And, thinking of him, we naturally inquired 
if with ourself it was "all right." 



LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 211 



GRAVES AND GRAVEYARDS. 

There is no way in which a refined and cultivated 
taste more appropriately shows itself than in adorn- 
ing and beautifying the dwellings of the dead. The 
ancient Egyptians gave but little care to their earthly 
houses, but they spent years of toil and employed 
the highest artistic skill upon their tombs. There is 
a philosophy in this. We love to think of the dead 
as crowned with immortal beauty, as wearing the 
bloom and possessing the vigor of eternal youth. 
We forget the foibles and faults which might have 
been theirs, but the remembrance of their virtues 
and kindnesses dwells ever with us. And the spot 
where they are laid should be beautiful to the eye, 
be adorned by the hand of affection, that all our 
thoughts of the dead may be elevating, pure and 
pleasant. Then, too, a graveyard, if tastily kept, is 
always a place of resort, not only for those who have 
heart-treasures buried in its bosom, but for the 
stranger who may be "within our gates." Is it not 
fitting, then, that the graveyard should be made at- 
tractive, that its location should be pleasant, that it 
should be adorned by art, that flowers and beautiful 
shrubbery should spring from the soil where lie the 
"dear departed" — so that to one gazing upon the 
scene, death should be robbed of some of its asperi- 
ties, and, as he thinks of the time when his cheek 
shall be colorless and his eyes closed forever, he will 



212 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

be enabled to look with quiet resignation, with sub- 
dued and chastened pleasure, 

, " Into the great Unknown, 

Into the silent land ?" 

Notwithstanding the sneers of the skeptic, the 
heardess philosophy of the stoic, and the faith of 
the Christian, death is an event almost universally 
dreaded. It is not the agony of dissolving nature 
which we fear, but it is the sense of that mystery 
which shrouds our exit from this world and entrance 
upon another. Even he who trustingly confides in 
the Scriptural revelations of a future world, is awed 
and startled by the very grandeur of those revela- 
tions, and he passes into the portal of death with that 
trembling hesitation with which a peasant would 
enter the palace of a king. 

But it is in our power to rob death of many of its 
unnatural terrors. The graveyard should be made 
so attractive as to become a pleasant place of resort, 
and so gradually the idea of death will become do- 
mesticated in our minds, the " better land " will 
become more familiar to our thought, and the con- 
viction will live more constantly within us that we 
"are passing through nature to eternity." We have 
passed many pleasant hours in graveyards. As we 
now write there are touching and beautiful scenes — 
and some sad and sorrowful ones — which memory 
brings vividly to mind. But it would protract our 
article too far to relate them. 

Yet we cannot close without enriching our page 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket, 213 

with a passage from Shakspeare, a passage which 
has elicited the admiration and touched the feelings 
of thousands, a passage which will command the 
praise and call forth the sympathy of men and women 
as long as genius shall be prized, and the heart be 
moved by the tear of sorrow and the sob of grief — 
the burial of Ophelia. 

Ophelia needs no eulogy. To know that Hamlet 
loved her is a sufficient guaranty that she possessed 
all sweet and maidenly quaHties. Yet, thinking of 
her burial, we love to think of her life, of her filial 
obedience, of her maidenly love, of her sweet praise 
of the loved one, of her touching lament over his sup- 
posed madness, of the last sad scene when, " chant- 
ing snatches of old tunes," she sank to "muddy 
death." We think of Hamlet too — of the thoughts 
and emotions which must have crowded upon him 
as he talked with the grave-diggers, soliloquized over 
the skull of "poor Yorick," and watched that form 
laid in the grave in which had been garnered up all 
his youthful loves. 

The reluctant priest has performed the obsequies. 
She has had 

" The maiden strewment, and the bringing home 
Of bell and burial." 

When Laertes asks : 

" Must then no more be done ? 
Priest. No more be done : 
We should profane the service of the dead 



214 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

To sing a requiem, and such rest to her 
As to peace-parted souls. 

Laer. Lay her i' the earth ; 
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
May violets spring ! I tell thee, churlish priest, 
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be 
When thou liest howling. 

Ham. What, the fair Ophelia ! 

Queen. {^Scattering flowers?) 
Sweets to the sweet : Farewell ! 
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife; 
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, 
And not have strewed thy grave." 



THE HOLIDAYS. 

The week intervening between Christmas and 
New Year's is the week of gladness, joy and fruitage. 
The blessings which the year has borne, the good it 
has wrought, finds expression in Christmas gifts and 
New Year's presents, and the love which proffers 
these, and the thankfulness which accepts them, is 
more to be valued than the gifts themselves. 

Love is to the life of the soul what electricity is 
to the world of matter — an unseen, all-pervading 
and almost almighty force. With it life blossoms 
into beauty, and is fragrant with mystic meanings 
and rich in noble uses. Without it life is dead as a 
sapless trunk, cold as a corpse. 

But love cannot always run on its sweet errands. 
Daily duties, stern necessities, the imperative de- 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 215 

mands of life, often confront it. Limited means 
make it impossible to translate the generous thought 
into equally munificent action. And so, as the year 
stores her warmth and light, her flavor and lustrous 
beauty into the ripening fruit and drops it in autumn, 
mellow, sweet and golden, into waiting hands, so love 
garners its gifts until the Christmas ushers in the 
week of joy and thankfulness, and then proudly 
places them in expectant hands, and reads its re- 
ward in the light of eyes sparkling with pleasure, or 
dimmed with a happiness which forces tears. The 
holidays are the harvest-time of human love. 

Now, too, we "post the books " — not the ledgers 
alone, but the account current of our lives — and 
see whether we are drifting toward yawning gulfs of 
sin, or rising with purer purpose toward nobler life. 
Of course one day is like another, and our division 
of time merely an arbitrary one, but yet in the fu- 
ture, as in the past, the advent of the New Year 
will continue to symbolize the youth of the world, 
the perennial joy of creation, the immortal spirit 
that, amid the ravages of death and decay and care 
and sorrow, still pursues its course to its celestial 
destiny. 



2l6 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 

An Editor and his Paper. — A newspaper is not 
a person, but it is considerably more than a thing. 
It has a separate existence, an identity distinct from 
that of its editor or publisher, though its life is very 
closely connected with the brain of the one and the 
pocket of the other. It may be an object of love 
and respect, or of hatred and detestation. The re- 
lation between an editor and his paper is something 
which neither Webster nor Worcester has fully de- 
fined. The paper is not the editor, though it demands 
his care and absorbs his thought, hanging on to him 
like a poor relation, as dependent as a participle on 
its parent verb. It interprets his ideas, and reflects 
his life — is a sort of errand boy, carrying his 
thoughts, — and has, moreover, a wise reticence, 
never communicating anything concerning its editor 
except what he wills to have known. The editor 
may be a harum-scarum fellow, with many little flaws 
on the surface of his daily life, but the paper is 
sober, staid, redolent with virtues, and solemn under 
the weight of " leaded " articles. And so the editor 
grows to love his paper. Demanding his constant 
care, taxing his most patient thought, it becomes the 
object of his love and the absorbent of his life. 



LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 217 



SOCIOLOGY. 

We merely chronicle the fact. At Piqua, Ohio, 
one Thomas Wise courted and said he would marry 
Mary Macher. He backed out of his promise 
and engaged himself to another young woman. 
Last Sunday, with this guilt upon him, he went to 
the Catholic church ; also to the same church went 
Mary, and took a seat immediately behind Thomas. 
After she had smoothed out the folds of her dress, 
she took a horse-pistol out of her muff, placed the 
muzzle against Thomas' back and fired, blowing a 
hole through his lungs. Thomas is not expected to 
recover. " But was there no — .''" No, it don't ap- 
pear that there was anything of that kind at all. 
Mary seems to have been as chaste as an icicle on 
the eaves of Diana's woodshed, and Thomas as free 
from all carnal sin as a graven image. 

There is not much to be said about it. It all 
comes from the law of progress. A woman's right 
to homicide the man who has been too much al- 
lured by her charms has been so frequently af- 
firmed by courts and juries that it may be consid- 
ered a part of the common law of the country. But 
to scorn her for the allurements of some hated rival 
— this is a far greater outrage to sensitive woman- 
hood, and progress demands that it be placed among 
the capital crimes also. This, at least, seems to have 
been Miss Mary's view of it when she pursued 



21 8 LUTE Taylor's chip basket. 

Thomas into the sanctuary and slew him at the foot 
of the altar. *■ 

The circle of social ideas and requirements within 
which a man's life may be considered safe is be- 
coming fearfully narrowed. The Mary Harris case 
we were not disposed to complain of — for, notwith- 
standing we thought the alleged offender in that case 
should have been tried before he was executed, still 
the moral of the case had no terrors for the young 
man of "correct habits." But push this Ohio case 
to its logical results, and where does the man of the 
period stand .'' He may enlarge his litany, and cry 
out, "From raging females and horse pistols in 
church. Good Lord deliver me ! " He may fly to 
the horns of the altar, and cling to them for safety. 
In vain — he shall be made to feel that "Hell hath 
no fury like a woman scorned." 

The upshot of it all will be, we suppose, to make 
social intercourse between ladies and gentlemen im- 
possible. In the present condition of the law of 
homicide we are not sure but that would be best. 



